“Too immense my danger and my joy” by R.Y. Deshpande

Yogi Aswapati has climbed the topmost ladder of creation and there comes from the other side of the utter Unknowable the supreme executive She, the Power of the Supreme to grant him a boon. They meet on the threshold mind, even as in a voice absolute and wise she states that she is a mystery the mind can never reach, that she is the goal of the travails of the suns, that her fire and sweetness are the cause of life. Her cautious advise to him is not too hastily to call truth down lest, born too soon, it might shatter the fragile imperfect earth. That is a part of her absoluteness and wisdom. He is in the meanwhile to

Accept the difficulty and godlike toil,

For the slow-paced omniscient purpose live. ||89.22||

The existential reality is that, around man, is the unpitying hungry Void and there is the eternal Darkness that seeks him with her hands, even as inscrutable Energies drive him and deceive him, and immense implacable deities oppose.

An inert Soul and a somnambulist Force

Have made a world estranged from life and thought;

The Dragon of the dark foundations keeps

Unalterable the law of Chance and Death;

On his long way through Time and Circumstance

The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx,

Her dreadful paws upon the swallowing sands,

Awaits him armed with the soul-slaying word:

Across his path sits the dim camp of Night. ||89.29||

Here is stipulated the fourfold quaternary to be met in the spirit-ward march of the evolutionary soul, and the Divine Mother herself speaks contextually of them, the Dragon, the Sphinx, the Night, and the Rock, the Divine who has become the foundational basis to awake consciousness in the inconscient stuff. The Dragon keeps the Law of Death operating in all its power and ferocity and inexorableness; Man is a riddle to himself and he does not know how to walk through the four stages of life, and the Sphinx, failing to get an answer from him, makes him her food; the thick and dark hood of darkness, the Night, covers the face of the truth and  what prevails is falsehood, promoting every evil and hostility and misfortune; the rigidity of the Rock, functionally necessary to prevent things getting swallowed up by the hungry Void, is God himself opposing God. How can there be then the play of beauty and harmony and gladness and love in this creation? Here is this riddle of the opposites making man’s field, and he has need of death to find a greater life. His body he resigns to death and pain, finally it turning into ashes, all the gains of life in matter disappearing into nought, the learnt lessons of organisation utterly dissolved. Indisputably, man cannot measure up to the demands of that glory and greatness which must be his.

Hence

Because the human instrument has failed,

The Godhead frustrate sleeps within its seed,

A spirit entangled in the forms it made. ||89.48||

In him the Earth-Mother sees draw near the change

Foreshadowed in her dumb and fiery depths,

A godhead drawn from her transmuted limbs,

An alchemy of Heaven on Nature’s base. ||89.59||

This needs to be confronted, needs to be tackled yogically and divinely. Pertinently, there is to this a note by Sri Aurobindo in his Record of Yoga, Thursday, dated 27 January 1927. It seems that a point has been reached when no longer can the issue about this forbidding quaternary be postponed. Evolution has come to a standstill and a radical breakthrough must be made.

‘Today a great revival. A vertiginous rapidity of progress in many directions. The attack of obscurity, resistance of the universal inconscience, refusal of the universal inertia, obstruction and conservatism of the material negation are beginning to lessen and even where they persist and intervene, cannot resist the progress. The past effects may still continue for a time, the future is not theirs.

‘The four Powers that resisted now appear more clearly,—the Dragon of the nether foundations who preserves the old Law intact till the will of the Supreme is manifested, the Sphinx of the eternal questioning, the Night of the eternal negation, the Rock (stone Purusha, inert Shiva) of the eternal inertia. Still they are there, but a first victory has been assured against them.’

This Inconscient Shiva has to wake up, the Rock, the insensible Matter, an inert Soul with his somnambulist Force, has to discover its true truth-substance that will lend to life and the higher powers of the spirit freedom from the workings of harsh suffering mortality, mortality in unprepared brute Matter.

In her absoluteness and unfaltering wisdom the issue is well stated by the Divine Mother herself when she advises Yogi Aswapati not to force the  matter too far, not to make haste by summoning the higher descent too soon. Things might prove counter-productive. He should leave Time to work itself out its calm sure steps in the progress of evolution. If evolution has been started with a superior divine intention, it cannot be without a force to accomplish what is intended to be. Let time work out things in their process with the desirable naturalness.

But the Yogi has another solution to offer. In the utter freedom of his soul and in the liberty of the spirit he has, defying what she had advised him to do, he takes courage to exercise his own firm complete free will;that is the quality of his yoga-tapasyā. Aswapati compels the executive She to go by his proposal. The  real-idea force that has been yogically set into motion is, it is the Divine Power, a living form of hers, who has to accept the mortal birth and deal with the incorrigible Quaternary.

The Yogi has done his job; it is now the Yogini’s tough work.

The Mother was occupied with it right from the beginning, even before she met Sri Aurobindo on 29 March 1914. In her Conversation dated 7 November 1961 she reveals:

‘Théon and Madame Théon never spoke of ‘Supermind,’ but they said the same thing as the Vedas, that the world of Truth must incarnate on earth and create a new world….

‘I could halt on any plane, do what I had to do there, move around freely, see, observe, and then speak about what I had seen. And my last stage, bordered on the Formless. In this domain [the last stage before the Formless] one experienced total unity—unity in something that was the essence of Love. It was a Light!… An almost immaculate white light, yet with something of a golden-rose in it.

‘Well, one time I was wanting to pass over to the other side, when I found myself in the presence of the ‘principle,’ a principle of the human form. I was on the verge of discovering a secret. Afterwards, when I met Sri Aurobindo he told me, ‘It is surely the prototype of the supramental form.’ I saw it several times again, later on, and this proved to be true. When the question of finding the Supermind came up, I had only to resume an experience I was used to.

‘When I returned from Japan, Sri Aurobindo had already brought the supramental light into the mental world and was trying to transform the Mind. Then instead of continuing to work in the Mind, both of us descended almost immediately from the Mind into the Vital, and so on quite rapidly, leaving the Mind as it was, fully in the light but not permanently transformed.

‘This lasted for a few months. Then we descended into the Physical—and all the trouble began. But we didn’t stay in the Physical, we descended into the Subconscient and from the Subconscient to the Inconscient. That was how we worked. And it was only when I descended into the Inconscient that I found the Divine Presence—there, in the midst of Darkness.

‘I descended into the total, unindividualised—that is, general—Inconscient. And there I suddenly found myself in front of something like a vault or a grotto, and when it opened, I saw a Being of iridescent light reclining with his head on his hand, fast asleep. All the light around him was iridescent. It was ‘the immanent God in the depths of the Inconscient,’ who through his radiations was slowly waking the Inconscient to Consciousness.

‘But then a rather remarkable phenomenon occurred: when I looked at him, he woke up and opened his eyes, expressing the beginning of conscious, wakeful action.

‘The Rishis’ description of what happens next is absolutely true: a formidable battle at each step. And it would seem impossible to wage that battle without having first experienced the junction above.

‘One can realise the Divine in the Inconscient rather quickly. But does this give the power to TRANSFORM DIRECTLY? Does the direct junction between the supreme Consciousness and the Inconscient give the power to transform the Inconscient just like that, without any intermediary? I don’t think so.

‘I think the problem arises only when you try to see and understand with the mental consciousness.

‘It is by rising to the summit of consciousness through a progressive ascent… that one unites with the Supermind. But as soon as the union is achieved, one knows and one sees that the Supermind exists in the heart of the Inconscient as well. When one is in that state, there is neither high nor low.’

That is the Rock opening to its awakened greatness. The Vedic Rishis had sensed the truth locked in the pen of Matter and that has now been thrown open to its expressive possibilities. The Rock is not something altogether new. The Ancients knew of it; the Puaraṇas spoke of it; the sons of Diti worshipped it. What is new of it is ,“when I looked at him, he woke up and opened his eyes, expressing the beginning of conscious, wakeful action.” It is that which is going forward.

Shiva, The Inconscient Creator, described by Sri Aurobindo, is:

A face on the cold dire mountain peaks

Grand and still; its lines white and austere

Match with the unmeasured snowy streaks

Cutting heaven, implacable and sheer.

Above it a mountain of matted hair

Aeon-coiled on that deathless and lone head

In its solitude huge of lifeless air

Round, above illimitably spread.

A moon-ray on the forehead, blue and pale,

Stretched afar its finger of still light

Illumining emptiness. Stern and male

Mask of peace indifferent in might!

But out from some Infinite born now came

Over giant snows and the still face

A quiver and colour of crimson flame,

Fire-point in immensities of space.

Light-spear-tips revealed the mighty shape,

Tore the secret veil of the heart’s hold;

In that diamond heart the fires undrape,

Living core, a brazier of gold.

This was the closed mute and burning source

Whence were formed the worlds and their star-dance;

Life sprang a self-rapt inconscient Force,

Love, a blazing seed, from that flame-trance.

How did all that happen? How was Achiteshwara born, one with no Consciousness, the Lord of Inconscience? And for what?

What had happened was a curious freak,

That quirk in its limitless freedom. Sure,

From his home of fortunes Ananda dharma

Had stepped out and travelled far, in cold night.

He had to visit Achiteshwara

Notwithstanding a blind unsafe journey

Down artless inclines, erring through light years

Of god’s dimnesses. As dimensions grew

Dubious suns ’gan to enter the chasm

And thickened quickly malicious shadows.

At every place sprang up abnormal forks

As if caprice-laden were chill spaces

In the unknown’s chest.  Achiteshwara

Had chosen the inclement realm of nought

For his dwelling and lived there aimingly,

Lost to himself. On the night’s rock he read

Starry hieroglyphs of deep occult wars,

Their terrible pangs and their triumphs too.

Weapons of mass destruction were deployed

And in the adversary’s arms had slipped

Silences. But the spirit’s crudity

Could not be if there were no joy. All breathes

In it, the wild ether of ecstasy.

Daughters swam in wrongful streams, and black swans

Made more inauspicious the milieu,

And strange noises filled the air, and sharp smells

Weighed humidly in the sky. Yet there burned

The fire of an unkindled sacredness

And in sevenfold loud repetition

Was performed the yajna. Prompt offerings

Agni carried to the respective gods,

Deities fashioning new destinies.

Achiteshwara hailed Anandadharma

And gave him the garland of hid virtues;

Oh the opulent hospitality

Spread over æons in lyrical chimes. [1 August 2004]

The Mother narrates: 21 April 1965:

‘At the beginning of the century, I had seen, before even knowing of Sri Aurobindo’s existence and without having ever heard the word “supramental” or the idea of it or anything, I had seen there, all the way up, on the threshold of the Formless at the extreme limit, an ideal form that resembled the human form, which was an idealised human form: neither man nor woman. A luminous form, a form of golden light. When I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote, I said, “But what I saw was the supramental form!” Without having the faintest idea that it might exist. Well, the ideal of form we are now moving towards resembles what I saw. That’s why I said: since there is an evolutionary concentration on this point, on the physical, bodily form, it must mean that Nature is preparing something for that Descent and that embodiment—it seems logical to me. That’s what I meant by an improved physical form.

‘Switching to a new body. The method may be used again, IF IT IS FELT TO BE NECESSARY.

‘Basically, once there is a body formed, precisely, by an ideal and an increasing development, a body with sufficient stuff and capacities, sufficient potential, there may very well be a rapid Descent of a supramental form, just as there was one with the human form. I know that when the transition—a very obscure transition—from the animal to man was sufficient, when the result was plastic enough, there was a Descent—there was a mental descent of the human creation. And they were beings (there was a double descent; it was in fact particular in that it was double, male and female), they were beings who lived in Nature an animal life, but with a mental consciousness; but there was no conflict with the general harmony. All the memories are absolutely clear of a spontaneous, animal life, perfectly natural, in Nature.

‘Naturally, it is always a movement of the consciousness and a certain movement of the will. And the change (impermanence) does not exist in the Nonmanifest, therefore the Nonmanifest is the true Divine. When I looked and concentrated on this point, I saw that this observation was indeed correct: the Manifestation is absolutely impermanent, it’s a perpetual transformation.

‘But in the Manifestation, perfection is to have a movement of transformation or unfolding identical to the divine Movement, the essential Movement. Whereas all that belongs to the unconscious or tamasic creation tries to keep its existence unchanged, instead of lasting by constant transformation.

‘Théon used to say that the glorified body would be made of a matter denser than physical matter, but with qualities that physical matter doesn’t have. And this substance does have qualities, they say, that Matter doesn’t have, like for instance elasticity. Well, a few nights ago, I was in a place in which a sort of pale gray substance had been collected, which could be stretched like chewing gum!

‘I had the impression of a substance that has to undergo a work of adaptation, transformation, utilisation, and that would serve as an outer form for the supramental being.

‘My impression is that Sri Aurobindo already has his subtle supramental form.

‘And the play of the will on the cells, the way in which the cells obey the will, is very interesting.

For the cells, that’s not the problem—the problem is not that, but whether to follow the Will for Transformation  or whether to follow the Will for Harmony, which is always present.’

The Mother is on the threshold of absolutely new formulation of frontiers of physico-occult workings. These take things much beyond the matters of the Dragon and the Sphinx. But let us look at them as we have these in Savitri. There are twelve occurrences of the “dragon” and four of the “sphinx” in it:

Although Savitri has taken mortal birth her terrestrial walk has still kept the measure of the celestial beings and powers. This is the white-fire dragon bird of endless bliss, and is here to conquer every calamity and suffering and mortal anguish:

‘Almost they saw who lived within her light

Her playmate in the sempiternal spheres

Descended from its unattainable realms

In her attracting advent’s luminous wake,

The white-fire dragon bird of endless bliss

Drifting with burning wings above her days:

Heaven’s tranquil shield guarded the missioned child.’ ||4.5||

In the following is the description of the Goddess of Inspiration with her lightning feet, a sudden messenger from the all-seeing tops, bringing her rhythmic sense of hidden things, a joy of light, a joy of sudden sight, a rapture of the thrilled undying Word:

‘In the deep subconscient glowed her jewel-lamp;

Lifted, it showed the riches of the Cave

Where, by the miser traffickers of sense

Unused, guarded beneath Night’s dragon paws,

In folds of velvet darkness draped they sleep

Whose priceless value could have saved the world.’ ||8.28||

Aswapati is receiving the secret knowledge of the working of Purusha and Prakrit, Being and Consciousness-Force in the terrestrial process; by it the bonds of Nature binding his spirit will be removed. That freedom will enable him first to explore the cosmic dimensions and trace the cause of this world’s failure; following it, he will set to solve the problem of this inconscient-born creation:

‘Here meanwhile at the Spirit’s opposite pole

In the mystery of the deeps that God has built

For his abode below the Thinker’s sight,

In this compromise of a stark absolute Truth

With the Light that dwells near the dark end of things,

In this tragi-comedy of divine disguise,

This long far seeking for joy ever near,

In the grandiose dream of which the world is made,

In this gold dome on a black dragon base,

The conscious Force that acts in Nature’s breast,

A dark-robed labourer in the cosmic scheme

Carrying clay images of unborn gods,

Executrix of the inevitable Idea

Hampered, enveloped by the hoops of Fate,

Patient trustee of slow eternal Time,

Absolves from hour to hour her secret charge.’ ||12.33||

Aswapati has become aware of his occult omnipotent Source, and is a living centre of the Illimitable; with it he turns to his immense spiritual fate. The earth-nature’s summits sink below his feet and he climbs to meet the infinite more above.

‘Opponent of that glory of escape,

The black Inconscient swung its dragon tail

Lashing a slumberous Infinite by its force

Into the deep obscurities of form:

Death lay beneath him like a gate of sleep.’ ||20.10||

Here is the picture of life that hoped not to survive in the dense obscure material circumstance:

‘An insect hedonism fluttered and crawled

And basked in a sunlit Nature’s surface thrills,

And dragon raptures, python agonies

Crawled in the marsh and mire and licked the sun.’ ||41.4||

Aswapati is witnessing kingdoms and godheads of greater life:

‘In the sleepy splendour of her noons he saw,

A perpetual repetition through the hours,

Thought’s dance of dragon-flies on mystery’s stream

That skim but never test its murmurs’ race,

And heard the laughter of her rose desires

Running as if to escape from longed-for hands,

Jingling sweet anklet-bells of fantasy.’ ||52.17||

The most puzzling reality of change in the nature of life is the gleam of slime, the evil deformation that had taken place in her with descent into the Night:

‘An inexorable evil’s worshipper,

She made vileness great and sublimated filth;

A dragon power of reptile energies

And strange epiphanies of grovelling Force

And serpent grandeurs couching in the mire

Drew adoration to a gleam of slime.’ ||58.14||

The pursuer of the all-conquering truth is now in the Realm of the Spirit and there he sees the divine Power who has the surest key to solve all the problems of this ignorance-hedged and death-afflicted mortal world:

‘Incarnating inexpressibly in her limbs

The boundless joy the blind world-forces seek,

Her body of beauty mooned the seas of bliss. ||81.20||

At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,

In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;

Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base. ||81.21||

Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;

The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;

She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.’ ||81.22||

Here are the pragmatics that need be recognised in forcing a change in the paces of the normal time. Practical wisdom needs be accepted lest a hasty action prove to be more calamitous:

‘An inert Soul and a somnambulist Force

Have made a world estranged from life and thought;

The Dragon of the dark foundations keeps

Unalterable the law of Chance and Death;

On his long way through Time and Circumstance

The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx,

Her dreadful paws upon the swallowing sands,

Awaits him armed with the soul-slaying word:

Across his path sits the dim camp of Night.’ ||89.29||

In her pursuit to find her soul and house in it the divine Power Savitri has entered into the inner countries:

‘All this streamed past her and seemed to her vision’s sight

As if around a high and voiceless isle

A clamour of waters from far unknown hills,

Swallowed its narrow banks in crowding waves

And made a hungry world of white wild foam:

Hastening, a dragon with a million feet,

Its foam and cry, a drunken giant’s din,

Tossing a mane of Darkness into God’s sky,

It ebbed receding into a distant roar;

Then smiled again a large and tranquil air:

Blue heaven, green earth, partners of Beauty’s reign,

Lived as of old, companions in happiness;

And in the world’s heart laughed the joy of life.’ ||118.58||

The narrative has moved into the domain of the occult of Death:

‘But on a failing edge of dumb lost space

Still a great dragon body sullenly loomed;

Adversary of the slow struggling Dawn

Defending its ground of tortured mystery,

It trailed its coils through the dead martyred air

And curving fled down a grey slope of Time.’ ||138.19||

This is dense occult poetry the parallel of which is nowhere to be found in the world-literature.

‘All things hang here between God’s yes and no,

Two Powers real but to each other untrue,

Two consort stars in the mooned night of mind

That towards two opposite horizons gaze,

The white head and black tail of the mystic drake,

The swift and the lame foot, wing strong, wing broken

Sustaining the body of the uncertain world,

A great surreal dragon in the skies. ||146.8||

Too dangerously thy high proud truth must live

Entangled in Matter’s mortal littleness.’ ||146.9||

About the “Sphinx” we have first this from Book Two Canto Six, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life. Here by her singing rivulets and calm lakes the explorer found the glow of her golden fruits of bliss and the beauty of her flowers of dream and muse. There is a mighty urge in her eyes, looking for the hidden sun, with the intuition that somewhere it does exist.

‘Always he met a veiled and seeking Force,

An exiled goddess building mimic heavens,

A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun.’ ||52.23||

In the Kingdom of Greater Knowledge are worlds of flame and wonder. Aswapati is  absolved from the ligaments of death and sleep and is riding the lightning seas of cosmic Mind; he has crossed the ocean of original sound; there is going to be his supernal birth; there is reached the unchanging Truth. On the borders of the inexpressible Light is the thrill of the presence of the Ineffable. He has reached the top of all that can be known:

‘Above him he saw the flaming Hierarchies,

The wings that fold around created space,

The sun-eyed Guardians and the golden Sphinx

And the tiered planes and the immutable Lords.’ ||78.24||

The mystery of the shadow-Sphinx yet stands unresolved:

‘An inert Soul and a somnambulist Force

Have made a world estranged from life and thought;

The Dragon of the dark foundations keeps

Unalterable the law of Chance and Death;

On his long way through Time and Circumstance

The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx,

Her dreadful paws upon the swallowing sands,

Awaits him armed with the soul-slaying word:

Across his path sits the dim camp of Night.’ ||89.29||

Hard is the world-redeemer’s task; the world itself becomes his adversary, his enemies are the beings he came to save. A greater power must come, a larger light; transcending pain and bliss he must front evil and good with calm and equal eyes.

‘He too must grapple with the riddling Sphinx

And plunge into her long obscurity.’ ||109.18||

But in all these occurrences what stands out to be most challenging is the fourfold Quaternary:

‘An inert Soul and a somnambulist Force

Have made a world estranged from life and thought;

The Dragon of the dark foundations keeps

Unalterable the law of Chance and Death;

On his long way through Time and Circumstance

The grey-hued riddling nether shadow-Sphinx,

Her dreadful paws upon the swallowing sands,

Awaits him armed with the soul-slaying word:

Across his path sits the dim camp of Night.’ ||89.29||

St George slew the dragon; but it was more of a vital monster. In the occult of the Transcendent Rishi Vāmadeva of the Rig Veda speaks of Indra slaying the dragon Ahi in the power of the Truth. Already a deep victory is won, but though slain the form still persists, the spirit yet survives. And that is the difficult task. It was on 27 January 1927 that the real thing had happened.

अवास्र्जन्तजिव्रयो न देवाभुवःसम्राळइन्द्रसत्ययोनिः |
अहन्नअहिमपरिशयानमअर्णःपरवर्तनीरअरदोविश्वधेनाः ||
अत्र्प्णुवन्तंवियतमअबुध्यमअबुध्यमानंसुषुपाणमइन्द्र |
सप्तपरतिपरवतआशयानमअहिंवज्रेणविरिणाअपर्वन ||

The gods sent thee down; thou becamest supreme king, O Indra, awomb of the Truth; thou slewest the dragon Ahi that slept coiled around the sea, thou hewedst out the powers of movement that are its universal streams.

The dragon insatiable, wide-extended, that cannot be known (or waked) & waketh not to knowledge but lies in deep sleep, O Indra, him thou didst rend with the lightning-flash in his jointless frame (?) who lies against the seven slopes. IV:19:2-3

The dragon body that sullenly loomed as an adversary of the slow struggling Dawn is a different creature and the Divine Mother’s caution to Yogi Aswapati is at the deepest level with the four powers in dire league to prevent evolution marching on the path of the real-idea in growing dimensions here. The following sonnet, The Hidden Plan, asserts with a confident degree that the needed thing has been done, the path cleared:

However long Night’s hour, I will not dream

That the small ego and the person’s mask

Are all that God reveals in our life-scheme,

The last result of Nature’s cosmic task.

A greater Presence in her bosom works;

Long it prepares its far epiphany:

Even in the stone and beast the godhead lurks,

A bright Persona of eternity.

It shall burst out from the limit traced by Mind

And make a witness of the prescient heart;

It shall reveal even in this inert blind

Nature, long veiled in each inconscient part,


Fulfilling the occult magnificent plan,

The world-wide and immortal spirit in man.

The black dragon of the Inconscience sustains with its vast wings and its back of darkness the whole structure of the material universe; its energies unroll the flux of things, its obscure intimations seem to be the startingpoint of consciousness itself and the source of all life impulse.

Here is the Mother’s prayer dated 24 September 1917, made while in Tokio, and later translated by Sri Aurobindo:

‘Thou hast subjected me to a hard discipline; rung after rung, I have climbed the ladder which leads to Thee and, at the summit of the ascent, Thou hast made me taste the perfect joy of identity with Thee. Then, obedient to Thy command, rung after rung, I have descended to outer activities and external states of consciousness, re-entering into contact with these worlds that I left to discover Thee. And now that I have come back to the bottom of the ladder, all is so dull, so mediocre, so neutral, in me and around me, that I understand no more….

‘What is it then that Thou awaitest from me, and to what use that slow long preparation, if all is to end in a result to which the majority of human beings attain without being subjected to any discipline?

‘How is it possible that having seen all that I have seen, experienced all that I have experienced, after I have been led up even to the most sacred sanctuary of Thy knowledge and communion with Thee, Thou hast made of me so utterly common an instrument in such ordinary circumstances? In truth, O Lord, Thy ends are unfathomable and pass my understanding….

‘Why, when Thou hast placed in my heart the pure diamond of Thy perfect Felicity, sufferest Thou its surface to reflect the shadows which come from outside and so leave unsuspected and, it would seem, ineffective the treasure of Peace Thou hast granted me? Truly all this is a mystery and confounds my understanding.

‘Why, when Thou hast given me this great inner silence, sufferest Thou the tongue to be so active and the thought to be occupied with things so futile? Why?… I could go on questioning indefinitely and, to all likelihood, always in vain….

‘I have only to bow to Thy decree and accept my condition without uttering a word.

‘I am now only a spectator who watches the dragon of the world unrolling its coils without end.’

This was in 1917 and by 27 January 1927 things had moved far beyond, she becoming far more than “only a spectator”. And things have become totally different after the significantly epochal 5 December 1950. The surhomme is already amidst us.

*

About the Author: Born on 17 April 1931 Dr. RY Deshpande is a professor, philosopher, author, poet and inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. After graduating from Osmania University, Hyderabad, he joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai as a research physicist in 1955 and worked in this organization till 1957. In 1957 he joined the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai where he worked till 1981 and headed several Atomic Energy and Space Projects in Advance Technology with Dr. Raja Ramanna. Having received his Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1964, he worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California USA from 1964 to 1965. He has some fifty research papers published in national and international scientific journals. He was also an examiner for a number of Ph.D. theses in the field of Solid State Physics. In 1981 Deshpande joined Sri Aurobindo Ashram of Pondicherry. For thirty years, he taught physics and a few other subjects such as Astrophysics, Savitri, The Future Poetry, Science and Society at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. For eight years he was the associate Editor of Mother India, a Monthly Review of Culture, published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. During 2007-2008 Deshpande was the editor of a web-magazine titled Science-Culture-Integral Yoga founded in Los Angeles. His published works in prose and poetry include titles like Sri Aurobindo and the New Millennium, Vyasa’s Savitri, The Ancient Tale of Savitri, “Satyavan Must Die”, All Life is Yoga, Nagin-bhai Tells Me, The Rhododendron Valley, All is Dream-Blaze, Under the Raintree, Paging the Unknown, The Wager of Ambrosia, Savitri: Notes and Comments, Elements and Evolution, Sri Aurobindo’s Narad, The Birth of the Sun-God, Hymns to Becoming, These Mountains, The Secret Knowledge, Savitri Talks: The Symbol Dawn, Islam’s Contribution to Science, Big Science and India, Running Through Savitri, A Look at the Symbol Dawn: Observations-Comments-Discussions, Savitri: The Poetry of Immortality,  and Sanatana Dharma: An Aurobindonian Perspective to name a few. He has also edited the following books: Nirodbaran: Poet and Sadhak, Amal Kiran: Poet and Critic and Perspectives of Savitri

59 Replies to ““Too immense my danger and my joy” by R.Y. Deshpande

  1. A few words on ‘surhomme’: ‘Surhomme’ means the transitional being between the present man and the new species whose advent is yet to come. However, in all the volumes of the ‘Mother’s Agenda’ as well as in ‘Questions and Answers’ (21st December 1950 to 26th November 1958], the terms ‘surhomme’ and ‘surhumanité’ have been wrongly translated as ‘superman’ and ‘supermanhood’. It is to be noted that ‘supermanhood’ and ‘superman’ refer to the supramental being. It was the late Georges Van Vrekhem who brought this mistranslation to the notice of the reader. And according to him, the actual translation of ‘surhomme’ should be ‘Overman’.

    On 16th April, 1958, the Mother declared as an existing fact what Sri Aurobindo had foreseen in ‘The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth’. She states that “there is already a beginning of realization. We have the proof that in certain conditions the ordinary state of humanity can be exceeded and a new state of consciousness worked out which enables at least a conscious relation between mental and supramental man. It can be asserted with certainty that there will be an intermediate specimen between the mental and the supramental being, a kind of overman who will still have the qualities and in part the nature of man, which means that he will still belong in his most external form to the human being [i.e. species] of animal origin, but that he will transform his consciousness sufficiently to belong, in his realization and activity, to a new race, a race of overmen. This species may be considered a transitional species, for it is to be foreseen that it will discover the means of producing new beings without going through the old animal method, and it is these beings — who will have a truly spiritual birth — who will constitute the elements of the new race, the supramental race. So we could call overmen those who, because of their origin, still belong to the old method of generation but who, because of their accomplishment, are in conscious and active contact with the new world of supramental realization.’ [‘Questions and Answers’, 1957-58, pp. 313 ff]

  2. In his book, ‘The New Spirituality’, Georges Van Vrekhem writes that it could be assumed that the Mother had fully realized the overman consciousness by about 1958. In 1959 She withdrew into her room on the second floor of the Ashram main building, and from the conversations recorded in ‘Mother’s Agenda’ we may deduce that from that time onwards she worked to create the archetype of the supramental being. On 1st January, 1969, the Mother announced that a new consciousness had manifested – “It spread out and went in search of people who could receive it” – which she defined a few days later as the consciousness of the overman [‘Notes on the Way’, p. 153]. ‘What the Mother had realized in her own body in 1958 now, on 1st January 1969, became an integral part of humanity’s evolution,’ remarks Georges.

    1. ‘What the Mother had realized in her own body in 1958 now, on 1st January 1969, became an integral part of humanity’s evolution,’ remarks Georges.

      That is very correct. It also means that things could be left in the charge of this New Consciousness, giving to her work that luminous degree of freedom by which the process would continue. Logically, this leads to her gainful withdrawal.

      If the Avatar Sri Krishna had 5000 years ago brought down the Overmind Consciousness into the evolutionary play he himself had to withdraw from the physical scene. Ditto now for both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

      Their withdrawal is not a failure of their Avataric work; it is rather a wider and a more luminous part of their work.

      1. ‘Their withdrawal is not a failure of their Avataric work; it is rather a wider and a more luminous part of their work.’

        You are absolutely right.
        This reminds me of a line from ‘Savitri’: ‘His failure is not failure whom God leads’ (Book III, Canto IV, p. 339). And also the following words of the Mother: ‘It is the human mind that has the conception of success and failure. It is the human mind that wants one thing and not another. In the divine plan each thing has its place. What matters is to be a docile and if possible a conscious instrument of the Divine Will. To be and to do what the Divine wants, this is the truly important thing.’ (‘Collected Works of the Mother’, Volume XVI, letter dated 3 December 1969)
        Kireet Joshi writes in his book ‘Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’: ‘When Sri Aurobindo left his body, the accumulated result of all his physical consciousness was transmitted to Mother’s body, and thus there was no waste. But now, apart from Mother’s body, there was no other body which was so developed that it could receive, if Mother left her body, the accumulated result of her physical consciousness. This was a formidable problem. But as we see from what she said, this problem was now solved. Even if she left her body, the work would not be spoilt, there would be no waste. The work would continue.’ (p. 199)

  3. There lies a vast gap which is to be bridged between the present mankind and the Gnostic beings. As long as the bodies are formed by the sexual process, they would not be transformable into the refined receptacle which is required to embody a supramental being. The principal reason is that the sexual process inevitably involves an element of the Inconscient, the basis of gross Matter, and that the Inconscient is irreconcilable with Supermind. That is why Sri Aurobindo has written:

    ‘… The necessity of a physical procreation could only be avoided if new means of a supraphysical kind were evolved and made available. A development of this kind must necessarily belong to what is now considered as the sphere of the occult and the use of concealed powers of action or creation not known or possessed by the common mind of the race…

    ‘If there is some reality in the phenomenon of materialisation and dematerialisation claimed to be possible by occultists and evidenced by occurrences many of us have witnessed, a method of this kind would not be out of the range of possibility. For in the theory of the occultists and in the gradation of the ranges and planes of our being which Yoga-knowledge outlines for us there is not only a subtle physical force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter, and to create this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible..

    ‘A soul wishing to enter into a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or even provided with such a form by this method of direct transmutation, without passing through birth by the sex process or undergoing any degradation or any of the heavy limitations in the growth and development of its mind and material body inevitable to our present way of existence. It might then assume at once the structure and greater powers and functionings of the truly divine material body which must one day emerge in a progressive evolution to a totally transformed existence both of life and form in a divinised earth-nature.’ [‘Essays in Philosophy and Yoga’, pp. 548-549]

    Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were aware of the problem of the transformation of the animal-human body and They worked to find a possible solution. The Mother, for instance, has said on 4 December 1957:

    “The problem before us is: How will this higher form be created?… Will it be by a process to be imagined that this [present human] form will little by little transform itself in order to create a new one? Or will it be by some other means, still unknown to us, that the new form [of the supramental being] will appear in the world? What I mean is: will there be a continuity or will there be a sudden appearance of something new? Will there be a progressive transition between what we are now and what our inner spirit aspires to become, or will there be a gap? In other words, shall we be obliged to drop this present human form and wait for the appearance of a new form – an appearance the process of which we do not foresee and which will have no relation with what we are now? May we hope that this body, which is our present means of earthly manifestation, will have the possibility of transforming itself progressively into something that will be able to express a higher life, or will it be necessary to give up this form entirely to enter into another that does not yet exist upon the earth?” [‘Questions and Answers, 1957-58, p. 233] And then, She suggested: “Why not both? Both will exist at the same time, the one does not exclude the other. The one will be transformed and be like a rough sketch of the other.” This reminds us of Sri Aurobindo’s “a first sketch of supermanhood”. “And the other, perfect, will appear when the first one will be existing. For both have their beauty and their reason of existence, therefore they will both be there. The mind always tries to make choices, decisions, but things do not work like that. Even all that we can imagine is much less than what will be. In truth, anyone who has an intense aspiration and an inner certitude will be called upon to realise it… Just as all sorts of possible intermediaries have been found between the animals and man, possible intermediaries that have not remained, so [now too] there will be all sorts of possible intermediaries: each individual will try in his own way, and all this together will help in preparing the future realisation.” [Ibid., p. 234]

    A few months earlier the Mother had already said: “There are two things. There is the possibility of a purely supramental creation on the one hand, and [on the other hand] the possibility of a progressive transformation of a physical body into a supramental body, or rather of a human body into an overman body [surhumain]. In the latter case, it would be a progressive transformation which could take a certain number of years, probably a fairly considerable number, and which would produce a being that would no longer be a human being related to the animal, but that would neither be the supramental being formed fully free of any kind of animality, for the present origin [of man] is necessarily an animal origin. This means that a transmutation may take place, a transformation sufficient to liberate [the new being] from its [animal] origin, yet [that new being] would not be a supramental creation pure and simple. Sri Aurobindo said that there would be an intermediary race – a race or some individuals maybe, one does not know – an intermediary degree that would serve as a transition or that would become permanent according to the requisites and the necessities of the creation. But if one starts from a body generated in the way human bodies are at present, the result will never be the same as a being generated entirely according to the supramental method and process. It will perhaps be more of the kind of the overman [surhumain] in the sense that every animal likeness may disappear, but it will not be able to have the absolute perfection of a body that is purely supramental in its generation.” [Ibid., 130-131]

    On 25 September 1957, the Mother read a passage from Chapter 6 of The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth; the last paragraph of this chapter goes as follows: “At its highest it [i.e. the new humanity] would be capable of passing into the Supermind and from the new race would be recruited the race of supramental beings who would appear as the leaders of the evolution in earth-nature.” Her comment, now wholly understandable and of obvious importance: “This was certainly what he expected of us, what he conceived of as the overman [surhomme], who must be the intermediate being between humanity as it is and the supramental being created in the supramental way, in other words: in no way part of the animal life any longer and freed from all animal needs.

    “As we are, we have been procreated in the ordinary way, the animal way, and as a consequence something of this animal origin will remain, even if we transform ourselves. The supramental being as he [Sri Aurobindo] conceived it, is not at all formed in the ordinary animal way, but directly, through a process that for the time being still seems occult to us, but that is a direct manipulation of forces and substance in such a way that the body is a ‘materialisation’ and not a formation according to the ordinary animal principle.

    “It is quite obvious that intermediary beings are necessary, and that it is these intermediary beings who must find the means to create beings of the Supermind. And there is no doubt that, when Sri Aurobindo wrote this, he was convinced that this is what we have to do.

    “I think I know – that it is now certain that we shall realise what he expects of us. It is no longer a hope, it is a certainty. Only, the time needed for this realisation will be long or short according to our individual effort, our concentration, our goodwill, and the importance we give to this fact. To the inattentive observer things may seem to be very much what they were in the past, but to somebody who knows how to look and is not deceived by appearances things are going well. Let each one do his best and it may be that not many years will have to go by before the first visible results become apparent to all.

    “It is for you to know whether this interests you more than anything else in the world. There is a moment when the body itself finds that there is nothing in the world so much worth living for as this, the transformation; that there is nothing which can be of an interest comparable with this passionate interest for the transformation. It is as though all the cells of the body were thirsting for that Light that wants to manifest. They cry out for it, they find an intense joy in it, and they are sure of the Victory.

    “This is the aspiration that I am trying to share with you, and you will understand that everything else in life is dull, insipid, futile, worthless in comparison with that: the transformation in the Light.” [‘Questions and Answers, 1957-58, pp. 190-191]

    1. “The problem before us is: How will this higher form be created?”

      The necessary path-hewing has been triumphantly done by the Avatar, that now the ready Nature would carry out the process in its evolutionary universality, in the prepared collective, to begin with. What will not be willing to change, that this Nature will eliminate, that will be absorbed, dissolved.

      In “Savitri” we have the following:

      And as he sang the demons wept with joy
      Foreseeing the end of their long dreadful task
      And the defeat for which they hoped in vain,
      And glad release from their self-chosen doom
      And return into the One from whom they came. ||106.12||

  4. On 10 May 1958, the Mother said during the course of a conversation: ‘…actually, to do Sri Aurobindo’s work is to realize the Supramental on earth. So I began that work and, as a matter of fact, this was the only thing I asked of my body. I told it, ‘Now you shall set right everything which is out of order and gradually realize this intermediate supermanhood between man and the supramental being’ or, in other words, what I call the overman. And this is what I have been doing for the last eight years, and even much more during the past two years, since 1956. Now it is the work of each day, each minute. That’s where I am. I have renounced the uncontested authority of a god, I have renounced the unshakeable calm of the sage … in order to become the overman. I have concentrated everything upon that.” [‘Mother’s Agenda’, Volume 1]

  5. Georges Van Vrekhem writes in his book, ‘Overman: The Intermediary between the Human and the Supramental Being’:

    ‘Sri Aurobindo had seen that an intermediary species or variety of beings, called by him “the new humanity” and by the Mother “overman”(le surhomme), would be necessary to make the appearance of “superman”, the supramental being, possible on the Earth, as the gap between Mind and Supermind was too huge for a direct transformation. A new species necessitates a newly evolved, higher physical embodiment, “a greater existence”. Sri Aurobindo had started realising such an embodiment in the cells of his body, pulling down the supramental Force into them. When the general cosmic circumstances proved to be such that the supramental transformation leading to the superman was possible only by descending consciously into death, Sri Aurobindo transferred his evolutionary acquisition to the Mother with the instruction to continue the work. This she did at once.’

    ‘… Now that the overman was realised, the Mother took up the supramentalisation of the body; she started building the first supramental body, the archetype of the future supramental species, within her gross material body.

    ‘The Mother had realised the possibility for overman, the transitional being, to exist physically on the earth: she had, as it were, created by the partial transformation of her own adhara the mould for the overman to appear as an intermediary degree in the evolution of the human and the supramental being. Remember what she said in 1958: “One may conclude from this that the moment one body [i.e. her own], of course formed according to the old animal method, is capable of living this consciousness naturally and spontaneously, without any effort, without going out of itself, it proves that it is not an exceptional, unique case, but that it simply is the forerunner of a realisation which, even if it is not general, can at least be shared by a certain number of individuals.”

    ‘This having been accomplished, the Mother began another great phase in her yoga: the realisation, through the transformation of her own physicality, of the archetype of the supramental being. These two realisations, far beyond the horizon of our imagination, were the reason why she stayed on in 1956. They were the reason why Sri Aurobindo decided to descend into death as, according to his own words, the Mother’s body was better suited than his to undergo this transformation. The Mother even said that, knowing the severity of what was awaiting her in her new incarnation, she had chosen both her parents especially with this factor in view: the robustness of their bodies. The double Avatar had come to establish the Supermind in the consciousness of the earth. It may be guessed that, through their love for humanity, they have shortened the appearance of the supramental being by hundreds, if not thousands, of years.’

  6. While discussing the constitution of the Supramental being on 30 September 1966, the Mother said:

    ‘This would be a transformation that is infinitely greater than that from the animal into man: this would be a change from man into a being no longer built in the same way, no longer functioning in the same way, being as it were a condensation or concretisation of something… Up to the present, this corresponds to nothing we have yet seen physically, unless the scientists have found something I do not know of… It is the leap, you see, that seems so enormous to me. I conceive without difficulty of a being that could, by spiritual power, the power of its inner being, absorb the necessary forces, renew itself and remain always young. One conceives this without any difficulty, even that some suppleness can be given to change the form if need be. But the total disappearance of this system of construction [of the body] all at once – all at once, from one [being] to the other?… It seems to require stages.’ [‘Notes on the Way’, pp. 46-47].

    And She commented further: ‘“How long would it take to do away with the necessity – let us consider this problem only – of the skeleton? This seems to me still very far away in the future.” The physical substance required for the functioning of the supramental body would have to be of a kind “that I do not know. It is not the substance as we know it now, and it is surely not the [bodily] construction that we know now… It seems to me that between what exists at present, the way we are, and that other form of life, many intermediary stages will be needed… It is something I feel more and more: the necessity of intermediary periods. It is quite obvious that something is happening, but it is not the ‘something’ that was seen and foreseen, and that will be the final accomplishment [i.e. the supramental being]. It is one of the [intermediary] stages that is going to happen, it is not the final accomplishment.”[Ibid., p. 55]

    Then, on 1st January, 1969 the Mother had a unique experience. She recalls: ‘During the night it was coming slowly, and on waking up in the morning there was as it were a golden dawn, and the atmosphere was very light. The body [meaning Her own body] body felt: ‘Hey, this is really, really new.’ A golden light, imponderous and benevolent – benevolent in the sense of a certitude, a harmonious certitude. It was new. Voilà. And when I say ‘bonne année’ to the people, it is that that I pass on to them. And this morning I have spent my time like this, spontaneously, saying: ‘Bonne année, bonne année…’”

    On 4 January, She said: “On the 1st, something really strange took place…. And I wasn’t the only one to feel it, a few people felt it too. It began just after midnight, but I felt it at 2, and others at 4 in the morning. It was… I told you a few words about it last time, but the surprising thing is that it didn’t correspond to anything I expected (I didn’t expect anything), or to any of the things I had felt. It was something very material, I mean it was very external—very outward—and luminous, with a golden light. It was very strong, powerful. But its character was a smiling benevolence, a peaceful joy, and a sort of blossoming in the joy and the light. And it was like a “happy new year,” like a wish. I must say it took me by surprise.

    “It lasted—I felt it for at least three hours. Afterwards, I stopped concerning myself with it, I don’t know what happened. But I told you a few words about it, and I spoke to two or three others: they had all felt it. Which means it was VERY material. They had all felt a sort of joy like that, but an amiable, powerful joy, and… oh, so sweet, very smiling, VERY BENEVOLENT… something… I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a kind of benevolence; so it was something very close to the human. And so concrete! So concrete. As if it had a taste, so concrete was it. Afterwards, I didn’t concern myself with it anymore, except that I told two or three people about it: they had all felt it. Now, I don’t know whether it has mingled or… It hasn’t gone, it doesn’t give the feeling of something that comes only to go away.

    “It was far more external than the things I usually feel, far more external…. Hardly mental at all, I mean there was no sense of a “promise” or… No. It would rather be like… My own impression was that of an immense personality, immense (meaning that for it, the earth was small, like this [Mother holds a small object in the hollow of her hands], like a ball), an immense personality, so very benevolent, and coming to… (Mother seems to gently raise the little ball in the hollow of her hands). It was the impression of a personal god (yet it was… I don’t know) who comes to help. So very strong! And so sweet at the same time, so understanding.

    “And it was very external: the body felt it everywhere, everywhere (Mother touches her face, her hands), all over like this.

    “What has become of it? I don’t know.

    “It was the start of the year. As if someone on the scale of a god (someone, that is) had come to say “Happy new year,” with all the power to make it a happy year. It was like that.

    “But what was it?…

    “So concrete…

    “I don’t know.

    “Is it… is it the personality (because it didn’t have any form, I didn’t see any form, there was only what it brought along [Mother feels the atmosphere with her fingers], sensation and feeling, these two things—sensation and feeling), I wondered if it wasn’t the supramental personality… which will, then, manifest later in material forms?

    “Since then, the body—this body—has been feeling (it has been permeated by that everywhere, a lot), it has been feeling much more joyful and less concentrated, living more in a happy, smiling expansion. For instance, it speaks more easily. There’s a note… a constant note of benevolence. A smile, you know, a benevolent smile, and all that with a GREAT FORCE…. I don’t know.

    ‘‘Is it the supramental personality?… Which will incarnate in all those who will have a supramental body…?

    “It was luminous, smiling, and so benevolent because of its POWER: I mean that generally, benevolence in the human being is something slightly weak, in the sense that it doesn’t like battle, it doesn’t like struggle—but this wasn’t like that at all! A benevolence that imposes itself (Mother brings her two fists down on the armrests of her chair).

    “It interested me because it was entirely new. And so concrete! Concrete like this (Mother touches the arms of her chair), like what the physical consciousness usually regards as “others,” as concrete as that. Which means it didn’t come through some inner being, through the psychic being: it came DIRECTLY onto the body.

    “What is it?… Yes, it may be that…. The body’s feeling since that took place has been a sort of certitude; a certitude as if now it no longer were in an anxiety or uncertainty to know. “What will it be? What will this Supramental PHYSICALLY be like?” the body used to wonder. “What will it be like physically?” Now, it no longer thinks about it, it’s happy.”

    When Satprem asked the Mother whether this was something which would permeate the bodies that are ready, the Mother replied:

    “Yes… I think so, yes. I feel it’s the formation that’s going to permeate and express itself—permeate and express itself—in the bodies… which will be the bodies of the Supramental.

    “Or maybe… maybe the overman? I don’t know. The intermediary between the two. Maybe the overman: it was very human, but a human of divine proportions, you understand.

    “A human without weaknesses and shadows: it was all luminous—all light and smile and… sweetness at the same time.

    “Yes, maybe the overman.”

  7. It was on 8th January 1969 that the Mother identified this new consciousness. “It is the descent of the consciousness of the overman [le surhomme]. I had the assurance afterwards. It was 1 January, after midnight. I woke up at two in the morning, surrounded by a consciousness, so concrete and so new, by which I mean that I had never felt that before. And it lasted, absolutely concrete, there, for two or three hours. And afterwards it spread out and went in search of all the people who were able to receive it. And I knew that it was the consciousness of the overman, that is to say: the intermediary between man and the supramental being. This has given to the body a kind of assurance, of confidence. It is as if this experience stabilised it [the body], and, if it keeps the right attitude, as if every support is there to help it.” [Notes on the Way., p. 153]

  8. According to a conversation dated 18 January 1969, we observe that the Mother had become quite familiar with the new Consciousness: “Well, it is very consciously active. It is like a projection of power. And it has now become habitual. There is a consciousness in it – something very precious – that gives lessons to the body, teaching it what it must do, that is to say which attitude it must take, which reaction it must have. I had told you many times that it is very difficult to find the process of transformation when there is nobody to give you any indications. Well, it is as if this were the reply. It comes and tells the body: ‘Take this attitude, do this, do that in that way.’ And so the body is content, it is completely reassured, it can no longer be mistaken. It is very interesting. It came as a mentor – practical, completely practical… In one of the former Entretiens, when I spoke there at the Playground, I said: ‘No doubt, the overman will be in the first place a being of power, so that he may defend himself.’ Well, this is it, it is that experience. It came back as an experience. And it is because it came back as an experience that I remember having said it.” [‘Notes on the Way’, pp. 154-155]

  9. Let’s quote a noteworthy observation-cum-analysis of Georges Van Vrekhem. In his book entitled ‘Overman: The Intermediary Between the Human and the Supramental Being’, he writes:

    ‘Overman is the intermediary being between man and superman, and his job is to make the supramental being possible, to find the means of producing the supramental body that will be the crown of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s Yoga – and of the Yoga of all those who work towards the same aim, who are “looking in the same direction” as the Mother put it. This, however, does not mean that the Consciousness of the overman is less than the supramental Consciousness. The latter having been established in the atmosphere of the earth in 1956, it would make no sense for a lesser consciousness to become active in the ongoing process of supramentalisation. The Consciousness of the overman is an aspect of the supramental Consciousness: it is the supramental Consciousness that emanates itself in a certain way in order to accomplish a certain task, namely the formation of the overman.

    ‘Two facts make this very clear. Firstly, the consciousness of the intermediary being that is overman is a supramental consciousness, called by Sri Aurobindo “the Mind of Light”. The fact that he defined it as the lowest degree of the Supermind does not diminish its importance. Any degree of the Supermind is supramental; anything supramental is divine; anything divine is worlds above our human status. Secondly, in 1969 the Mother was already far advanced in the realisation of the supramental body within her gross material body. Therefore the fact that she was so plainly content with the presence and guidance of the Consciousness of the overman, acting as her mentor, is a sure indication of its supramental status.

    ‘The presence of the Consciousness of the overman in the atmosphere of the earth is a permanent fact, whether it is known or not. It means that overmen and overwomen are coming into existence and are already there, now, unnoticed, in the common mass of humanity. The Mother herself has pointed this out when she said in April 1972: “The change from the human into the supramental being is being achieved… through the overman. It may be that there will be some overmen – there are some – who will make the transition possible.” [‘Mother’s Agenda’, 15 April 1972]

    … ‘The Mother would continue her sometimes ecstatic, often gruesome, but always glorious Yoga of the body till the end on 17 November 1973, at the time of writing twenty-seven years ago. Gradually the prototype of the supramental body took shape in her in a series of extraordinary experiences. She saw her new body in May 1970, and ‘ce n’était pas surhumain’, it was not a body of the overman but of the superman. In March 1972 the formation of the supramental body was complete: she was like that, she said, she “had a totally new body”.’

  10. This reminds us of what the Mother has said during Her classes at the Ashram Playground in 1958:

    “All those who make an effort to overcome their ordinary nature, all those who try to realise materially the profound experience that has brought them into contact with the divine Truth, all those who, instead of turning to the Hereafter or the On-high, try to realise physically, externally, the change of consciousness they have realised within themselves – all those are apprentice-overmen [des apprentis-surhommes]. Among them, there are countless variations according to the success of their efforts. Each time we try not to be an ordinary man, not to live the ordinary life, to express in our movements, our actions and reactions the divine Truth, when we are governed by that Truth instead of being governed by the general ignorance, we are apprentice-overmen, and according to the success of our efforts we are, well, more or less good apprentices, more or less advanced on the way.” [‘Questions and Answers’, 1957-58, p. 411]

  11. In his biography of the Mother entitled ‘The Mother: The Story of Her Life’, Georges Van Vrekhem observes:

    ‘The overman consciousness is an aspect of the supramental consciousness, which has been present in the Earth-atmosphere since 1956. What the Mother had realized in 1958, now, on 1 January 1969, became an integral part of the evolution, with the task of realizing the intermediary being, the overman, in humanity — ‘it spread out and went in search of people who could receive it’ — and with the power to protect this transitional species.

    ‘Why does the overman need protection? Because the world is in the grip of powerful and cunning hostile forces, anti-divine forces, that will mercilessly do everything within their power to prevent a change in the dispensation and the incarnation of any kind of higher species on Earth.’

  12. On 16 April 1958, in Her class at the Ashram Playground, the Mother read the following paragraph from Sri Aurobindo’s ‘The Life Divine’ [p. 847] : ‘If, then, man is incapable of exceeding mentality, he must be surpassed and Supermind and superman must manifest and take the lead of the creation. But if his mind is capable of opening to what exceeds it, then there is no reason why man himself should not arrive at Supermind and supermanhood or at least lend his mentality, life and body to an evolution of that greater term of the Spirit manifesting in Nature.’

    The last sentence is one of the several pointers in The Life Divine to the possibility, if not the necessity, of an intermediary being between the human and the supramental species. She is speaking, throughout, of the ‘surhomme’, that is, the overman. The Mother continues:

    “Anyway, we have now arrived at a certitude, since there is already a beginning of realisation. We have the proof that in certain conditions the ordinary state of humanity can be exceeded and a new state of consciousness worked out which enables at the very least a conscious relation between mental and supramental man.

    “It can be affirmed with certainty that there will be an intermediate specimen between the mental and the supramental being, a kind of overman [surhomme] who will still have the qualities and in part the nature of man, which means that he will still belong in his most external form to the human being [i.e. species] of animal origin, but that he will transform his consciousness sufficiently to belong, in his realisation and activity, to a new race, a race of overmen [surhommes]. “This species may be considered a transitional species, for it is to be foreseen that it will discover the means of producing new beings without going through the old animal method, and it is these beings – who will have a truly spiritual birth – who will constitute the elements of the new race, the supramental race. So we could call overmen [surhommes] those who, because of their origin, still belong to the old method of generation but who, because of their accomplishment, are in conscious and active contact with the new world of supramental realization…

    “There is a subtlety of vibration which renders global, universal perception spontaneous and natural. The sense of division, of separation, vanishes quite naturally and spontaneously with [the presence of] this substance. And this substance is at present almost universally spread out in the atmosphere of the earth…

    “One may conclude from this that the moment one body, of course formed according to the old animal method, is capable of living this consciousness naturally and spontaneously, without any effort, without going out of itself, it proves that it is not an exceptional, unique case, but that it simply is the forerunner of a realisation which, even if it is not general, can at least be shared by a certain number of individuals who, moreover, as soon as they share [that realisation], will lose the feeling of being separate individuals and become a living collectivity.

    “This new realisation is proceeding with what one might call lightning speed, for if we consider time in the usual way, only two years have passed – a little more than two years – from the moment the supramental substance penetrated into the earth-atmosphere [on 29 February 1956] till the moment that this change in the quality of the earth-atmosphere took place [i.e. now].” [‘Questions and Answers, 1957-58, pp. 313]

    1. Wonderful complementary quotes, Anurag.

      “There is a subtlety of vibration which renders global, universal perception spontaneous and natural. The sense of division, of separation, vanishes quite naturally and spontaneously with [the presence of] this substance. And this substance is at present almost universally spread out in the atmosphere of the earth… ”

      So many of us experience this vanishing of division and separation – and, look how others cling vehemently to division and separation. An intriguing reality to observe.

  13. It is evident that following the manifestation of the ‘surhomme’ consciousness on 1 January 1969, the Mother’s sadhana witnessed a great change. About this, She has said on 14 March 1970:

    “The physical is capable of receiving the higher Light, the Truth, the true Consciousness and of manifesting it…. It took a little more than a year for this Consciousness to win this victory. And still, naturally, it is not visible except to those who have the inner vision, but it is done… This is the fourteenth month since the Consciousness came…”

    In a conversation dated 5 August 1970, the Mother has referred to the ‘surhomme’ consciousness. Here is what She has said:

    ‘This Consciousness which came more than a year ago (a year and a half now), it seems to be working very, very hard, very positively for sincerity. It doesn’t admit pretenses, people pretending to be something they aren’t. It wants it to be the TRUE THING…

    ‘And it disrupts arrangements like that, in the appearances.

    ‘It’s an excellent mentor for the body: it’s perpetually giving it lessons…. I don’t know if all bodies are like this, but this one feels like a very small child, and it WANTS to be “in school,” it wants to be shown where it goes wrong and to learn things. And it’s constantly learning. But what comes from outside… This is very interesting: the Consciousness (the Consciousness there [gesture above]) is influenced by nothing; it’s a witness, it sees, but it doesn’t receive. The body still receives vibrations: with some people, when they sit in front of me, suddenly there are pains, things going wrong; but now it knows (naturally it knows it’s in pain!), but it doesn’t put the blame on others: it puts it on itself, it takes it as an indication of the points that aren’t yet exclusively under the divine Influence. From that point of view, it’s very interesting…. It knows the gap between the consciousness of the being using it and itself; but it doesn’t suffer from it and has perfect humility and modesty. And it’s not surprised or worried, because its “May Your Will be done.” That has become an absolute law: “May Your Will be done; it doesn’t concern me, I am incapable of judging, nor do I try: may Your Will be done.” So then, it’s like this (passive, offered gesture). And when it disappears, when it’s wholly, completely surrendered and no longer exists by itself, then the Force going through becomes… sometimes it’s awesome. Sometimes one can see, the witness-consciousness can see that there would be really no limits to the possibilities. But it’s not “that” yet, far from it…. It comes as an example of what can be done. But… before it can be spontaneous and natural…

    ‘This Consciousness, I let it work actively, because… I’ve noticed it really knows. Otherwise, the sense of closeness with all of you is much greater than before—much greater. I almost feel I am moving about within you all (I didn’t feel that before). But before, maybe my consciousness was exerting a pressure on yours (gesture of pressing with a thumb), while now it probably no longer does, because… it’s as if I were doing it from within…’ [Mother’s Agenda]

  14. Kireet Joshi concludes his book ‘Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’ with the following words:

    ‘Mother made an effort at a complete transformation of the body, although she had no assurance whether this goal could be reached or not. The effort went up to the extreme point of acuteness; that effort had long ago become the effort of the body of the earth; that effort continues. Mother had said that it would require three hundred years to bring about the transformed body. She had also spoken of the need to follow the rule of several intermediate bodies as in the case of the evolution of man in succession of the chimpanzee. That work is on, and there is no obstacle. There is continuity; in that continuity all the bodies are involved; the body of each one of us is in the cauldron of transformation. This is the cosmic yoga which none can escape and in which salvation and realisation are at once physical and collective.’ [p. 235]

    1. “This is the cosmic yoga which none can escape and in which salvation and realisation are at once physical and collective.” — Kireet Joshi

      Perhaps this is a bit overstated. There is an option of disappearing into the Source instead of staying in the manifestation.

      Let me quote here the Mother’s full conversation in February 1958, Agenda Vol I:

      Yesterday morning, while reading a letter from A.H., I understood the Christian symbolism. It could be that some people understand … Anyway, I suddenly understood … It is extremely metaphysical. I followed the idea from a metaphysical point of view, along the lines of what we were saying yesterday: this ‘error’ committed that allowed the world to become what it is. But [p.148]at the extreme limit, there always remains the question, ‘How is it possible?’ I was no longer seeing this with the mind.

      I came to the conclusion that from a practical standpoint, the solution is that the part of humanity expressing this Error in its life and its consciousness should … or to put it another way, that part of humanity, of the human consciousness, capable of uniting with the Supermind and of liberating itself, will be completely transformed. This humanity is moving towards a future reality not yet expressed in its outer form. Whereas the part of humanity nearer to the simplicity of the animal or of Nature will be reabsorbed by Nature and entirely reassimilated. The possibility of a mental consciousness that allows for perversion—that makes mental perversion such an excruciating thing—will be abolished. It will disappear. These things will no longer be.

      In the vision, I went much deeper into this thought. I saw all the stages, but I no longer see them now. I can no longer explain—there was suddenly a vision that understood the idea of atonement and redemption. It was not formulated in words. Also, the idea that only an act of faith in a divine intervention could … was the means of salvation. This was the idea of salvation. I understood Christ and faith in Christ. I understood it, and it did not apply uniquely to Christianity or to original sin. I understood what original sin and redemption through faith in Christ meant.[p.149]

  15. Thank you Anurag for this huge research within Sri Aurobindo/Mother’s work and George Van Vrekhem publications. And of course thank you Deshpande-ji for your enormous work. This discussion is very, very contemporary. It expresses the need of the time. Let me quote back a single sentence from Mother that stroke me over all the rest:

    “The time needed for this realisation will be long or short according to our individual effort, our concentration, our goodwill, and the importance we give to this fact.”

    So let us get UNITED in spirit and consciousness, dedicated and concentrated on every detail that this new Consciousness, so benevolent and strong, will bring forward for us. Playing with words, I will pray and say: Let us access to this new “united state” (literally…) of the world!

  16. Please refer to the Mother’s conversation with Satprem dated 7 November 1961:

    ‘…It was only when I descended into the Inconscient that I found the Divine Presence—there, in the midst of Darkness.

    ‘I descended into the total, unindividualised—that is, general—Inconscient. And there I suddenly found myself in front of something like a vault or a grotto, and when it opened, I saw a Being of iridescent light reclining with his head on his hand, fast asleep. All the light around him was iridescent. It was ‘the immanent God in the depths of the Inconscient,’ who through his radiations was slowly waking the Inconscient to Consciousness.

    ‘But then a rather remarkable phenomenon occurred: when I looked at him, he woke up and opened his eyes, expressing the beginning of conscious, wakeful action.’…

    Here is another account of this same vision:

    “After I returned from Japan, and we began to work together,” Mother recounted to Satprem, “Sri Aurobindo had already brought down the supramental light into the mental world and was trying to transform the Mind. ‘It’s strange,’ he told me, ‘it is an endless work! Nothing seems to get done — everything is done and then has to be constantly done all over again.

    “Then I gave him my personal impression, which went back to the old days with Theon, ‘It will be like that until we touch bottom.’

    “I had that experience.

    “I had the experience of being ‘missioned,’ so to speak, in a form of Love and Consciousness combined emanated DIRECTLY into the nethermost depths of the Inconscient. And there, I had the impression of being, or rather of finding a symbolic being in deep sleep . . . so veiled that he was almost invisible. Then, at my contact, the veil seemed to be rent and, without his awakening, there was a kind of radiation spreading out. I can still see my vision…” [Sujata Nahar, ‘Mother’s Chronicles’, Volume III, p. 2

    1. The Mother concluded: “And it is remarkable that this marvellous Being strangely resembles him whose vision I had one day: the Being who is found at the other extremity—at the borderline of the form and the Formless. Only, the latter was in a golden glory, carmine, while in its sleep this other Being was diamond white, emanating opalescent rays.
      “That, in fact, is the origin of all the Avatars.” [‘Mother’s Chronicles’, Volume III, p. 217]

  17. Afterwards the Mother had written down this vision in French and it was published in the journal, ‘Cosmic Review’ in 1906. Here is the English translation of this vision as published in Sujata Nahar’s ‘Mother’s Chronicles’, Volume III, pp. 213-217:

    ‘I slept, and now I am awake.

    ‘I slept upon the westward waters and now I penetrate into the ocean to fathom its depths. Its surface is the green of beryl, silvered by moonbeams. Below, the water is the blue of sapphire and already faintly luminous.

    ‘Reclining on the waves’ silken folds, I descend; rocked from one undulating wave to another in a gentle rhythm, I am borne in a straight line towards the west. The deeper I go, the more luminous the water becomes, great silvery currents coursing through it.

    ‘Cradled from wave to wave, for a long while I descend deeper, ever deeper.

    ‘All at once, looking above me, I glimpse something roseate; I draw nearer and discern a coralesque shrub, as large as a tree, held fast to a blue reef. The denizens of the waters, myriad and diverse, glide to and fro. Now I find myself standing upon fine, shining sand. I gaze about me in wonder. There are mountains and valleys, fantastic forests, strange flowers that could as well be animals, and fish that might be flowers — there is no separation, no gap between stationary beings and non-stationary. Colours everywhere, shimmering, brilliant or muted, but always harmonious and refined. I walk upon the golden sands and contemplate all this beauty bathed in a soft, pale blue radiance; tiny, luminous spheres of red, green and gold circulating through it.

    ‘How marvellous are the depths of the sea! Everywhere the presence of the One in whom all harmonies reside is felt!

    ‘Ever westward I advance, not tiring, not slowing. Sight succeeds sight in incredible variety. Here upon a rock of lapis lazuli stretch fine and delicate seaweeds like long blond or violet tresses; here are great, rose-hued fortress walls, all streaked with silver; here flowers seem chiselled from enormous diamonds; here goblets, as beautiful as though crafted by the most skilled carver, are filled with what appear to be droplets of emerald, alternately vibrant with light and shade.

    ‘Presently I wend my way between two rock walls, blue as sapphire, upon a path flecked with silver; and the water becomes ever purer and more luminous.

    ‘A sudden turn in the path and I find myself before a grotto which seems fashioned in wrought crystal, scintillating with prismatic radiance.

    ‘Standing there between two iridescent pillars is a very tall figure; his face, framed in short blond curls, is that of a very young man; his eyes are sea-green; he is clad in a pale blue tunic, and like wings upon his shoulders are great fins, white as snow. Beholding me, he steps aside against a pillar to let me pass. Barely have I crossed the threshold when an exquisite melody strikes my ears. The waters are all iridescent here, the ground aglow with lustrous pearls; opaline the portico and vault, hung gracefully with stalactites; delectable perfumes hover everywhere; galleries, niches and alcoves open out on all sides; but directly ahead of me I perceive a great light and towards it I bend my steps. There are broad rays of gold, silver, sapphire, emerald and ruby, radiating outward in all directions, born from a centre too distant for me to discern; to this centre I feel drawn by a powerful attraction.

    ‘Now I see whence these rays emanate. I see a recumbent oval of white light girdled by a superb rainbow, and I sense that the One whom the light hides from my view is plunged in a profound repose. For long I remain at the outer edge of the rainbow, trying to pierce the light and see the One who is sleeping girdled by such splendour. Unable to discern anything, I enter the rainbow, and thence into the white and shining oval. Here I see a marvellous Being, stretched on what seems to be a drift of white eiderdown. His supple body, of incomparable beauty, is clad in a long, white robe. His head rests on his folded arm, but of that I can see only his long hair, the hue of ripened wheat, flowing over his shoulders. A great and sweet emotion sweeps through me at this magnificent spectacle, and a deep reverence as well.

    ‘Has the sleeper sensed my presence? For now he awakens and rises in all his grace and beauty. He turns towards me and his eyes meet mine, mauve and luminous eyes with a gentle, an infinitely tender expression. Wordlessly he bids me a sublime welcome and my whole being joyously responds. Taking my hand, he leads me to the couch he has just left. I stretch out on this downy whiteness, and his harmonious visage bends over me; a sweet current of force enters wholly into me, invigorating, revitalizing each cell.

    ‘Then, girdled by the splendid colours of the rainbow, enveloped by lulling melodies and exquisite perfumes, beneath his gaze so powerful, so lender, I float into a beatific repose. And during my sleep I learn many beautiful and useful things.

    ‘Of all these marvellous things, understood

    ‘Wherever there is beauty, wherever there is radiance, wherever there is progress towards perfection, whether in the Heaven of the heights or of the depths, there, assuredly, is found the form and similitude of man- man, supreme terrestrial evolutor.’

    Thus ended the Mother’s account of her vision.

  18. The Mother also speaks of this vision on 28 May 1958:

    ‘I could speak to you of a very old tradition, more ancient than the two known lines of spiritual and occult tradition, that is, the Vedic and Chaldean lines; a tradition which seems to have been at the origin of these two known traditions, in which it is said that when, as a result of the action of the adverse forces—known in the Hindu tradition as the Asuras—the world, instead of developing according to its law of Light and inherent consciousness, was plunged into the darkness, inconscience and ignorance that we know, the Creative Power implored the Supreme Origin, asking him for a special intervention which could save this corrupted universe; and in reply to this prayer there was emanated from the Supreme Origin a special Entity, of Love and Consciousness, who cast himself directly into the most inconscient matter to begin there the work of awakening it to the original Consciousness and Love.

    ‘In the old narratives this Being is described as stretched out in a deep sleep at the bottom of a very dark cave, and in his sleep there emanated from him prismatic rays of light which gradually spread into the Inconscience and embedded themselves in all the elements of this Inconscience to begin there the work of Awakening.

    ‘If one consciously enters into this Inconscient, one can still see there this same marvellous Being, still in deep sleep, continuing his work of emanation, spreading his Light; and he will continue to do it until the Inconscience is no longer inconscient, until Darkness disappears from the world—and the whole creation awakens to the Supramental Consciousness.

    ‘And it is remarkable that this wonderful Being strangely resembles the one whom I saw in vision one day, the Being who is at the other extremity, at the confines of form and the Formless. But that one was in a golden, crimson glory, whereas in his sleep the other Being was of a shining diamond whiteness emanating opalescent rays.

    ‘In fact, this is the origin of all Avatars. He is, so to say, the first universal Avatar who, gradually, has assumed more and more conscious bodies and finally manifested in a kind of recognised line of Beings who have descended directly from the Supreme to perfect this work of preparing the universe so that, through a continuous progression, it may become ready to receive and manifest the supramental Light in its entirety.

    ‘In every country, every tradition, the event has been presented in a special way, with different limitations, different details, particular features, but truly speaking, the origin of all these stories is the same, and that is what we could call a direct, conscious intervention of the Supreme in the darkest matter, without going through all the intermediaries, in order to awaken this Matter to the receptivity of the Divine Forces.

    ‘The intervals separating these various incarnations seem to become shorter and shorter, as if, to the extent that Matter became more and more ready, the action could accelerate and become more and more rapid in its movement, more and more conscious too, more and more effective and decisive.

    ‘And it will go on multiplying and intensifying until the entire universe becomes the total Avatar of the Supreme.’ [‘Collected Works of the Mother’, 1957-58, pp. 332-334]

  19. Respected Deshpande-ji,
    Could it be that the Mother was referring to Martanda, the eighth son of Aditi or the eighth Sun? Our scriptures say that left behind by Aditi, Martanda was hidden in the darkness of the cave by the robbers. But with his own luminous light he had illuminated everything in that dark cave.
    I invite your kind views on this?
    With warm regards,
    Anurag

  20. I will have to put the issue in several instalments. Here is the first:

    We start with a note from Sri Aurobindo about the Tale of Satyavan and Savitri:

    “The tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory. Still this is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life.”
    [https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/33/the-tale-of-satyavan-and-savitri?search=Vedic+cycle ]

    Here the significant phrase is the “Vedic cycle” in the second sentence. That is the first clue to the eight sons of Aditi which he did not expatiate anywhere. But in his Vedic expositions there are indicative details about this most ancient myth which is also very pregnant with the story of creation and the possibilities of the terrestrial evolution.

    The ’story’ of the eighth sun of Aditi, Mārtānda, belongs to the tenth Maṇdala of Rig Veda. The word Mārtānda itself means ‘the mortal egg’ which already conveys a lot. The verses are as follows.

    अ॒ष्टौ पु॒त्रासो॒ अदि॑ते॒र्ये जा॒तास्त॒न्व१स्परि॑ ।
    दे॒वाँ उप॒ प्रैत्स॒प्तभिः॒ परा॑ मार्ता॒ण्डमा॑स्यत् ॥ १०.०७२.०८
    स॒प्तभिः॑ पु॒त्रैरदि॑ति॒रुप॒ प्रैत्पू॒र्व्यं यु॒गम् ।
    प्र॒जायै॑ मृ॒त्यवे॑ त्व॒त्पुन॑र्मार्ता॒ण्डमाभ॑रत् ॥ १०.०७२.०९

    Eight are the Sons of Aditi, they born from her body. With seven she went to the realm of the Gods and left Mārtānda in the Darkness here.
    With her Seven Sons she went to meet the earlier age, leaving Mārtānda behind to spring to life and die again.

    Sri Aurobindo writes about it: “We are told that there are eight sons of the cosmic Aditi who are born from her body; by seven she moves to the gods, but the eighth son is Mārtānda, of the mortal creation, whom she casts away from her; with the seven she moves to the supreme life, the original age of the gods, but Mārtānda is brought back out of the Inconscient into which he had been cast to preside over mortal birth and death.”
    [https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/15/the-guardians-of-the-light?search=martanda]

    1. Let us look into the following by Sri Aurobindo:

      “We are told that there are eight sons of the cosmic Aditi who are born from her body; by seven she moves to the gods, but the eighth son is Mārtānda, of the mortal creation, whom she casts away from her; with the seven she moves to the supreme life, the original age of the gods, but Mārtānda is brought back out of the Inconscient into which he had been cast to preside over mortal birth and death.”

      The Aditi spoken of here is the “cosmic Aditi”; she is not the “one original transcendental Shakti, the Mother standing above all the worlds and bearing in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine”, as we have in his “The Mother”.

      Let us also refer “Savitri”:The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone
      Has called out of the Silence his mute Force
      Where she lay in the featureless and formless hush
      Guarding from Time by her immobile sleep
      The ineffable puissance of his solitude. ||15.7||
      The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone
      Has entered with his silence into space:
      He has fashioned these countless persons of one self;
      He lives in all, who lived in his Vast alone;
      Space is himself and Time is only he. ||15.8||

      This “cosmic Aditi” of the Rig Veda is not the “ineffable puissance of his solitude”. This “ineffable Puissance” could be said to be the First or Original Aditi whose first child is Sachchidananda, with his birth she becoming the Mother. “The Supreme is manifest in her for ever as the everlasting Sachchidananda, manifested through her in the worlds as the one and dual consciousness of Ishwara-Shakti and the dual principle of Purusha-Prakriti, embodied by her in the Worlds and the Planes and the Gods and their Energies and figured because of her as all that is in the known worlds and in unknown others.” (“The Mother”)

      That could help us understand what is meant by “with the seven she moves to the supreme life, the original age of the gods”, they advancing from the cosmic or universal to the Transcendental, Sachchidananda.

      And then, “Mārtānda is brought back out of the Inconscient into which he had been cast to preside over mortal birth and death.” That is evolution.

    2. Mārtānda means ‘the mortal egg’, and this has connection with earth, also called मृत्युलोक, the world of the mortals. It is here only that Mārtānda appears, cosmic Aditi leaving him here with a profound intention, intention born of the Will of the Highest, earth what Sri Aurobindo calls as a “significant centre”:

      “Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in which the Mother is the supramental Mahashakti, a Power of divine omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls and powers and bodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But here where we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their source, of which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle and imperfection is upheld by the Universal Mother; this too is impelled and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti.” (The Mother, pp. 22-23)

      How is earth a “significant centre”? The following is from Record of Yoga:

      “The material world is first formed with the Sun as centre, the Sun [ ]1 being itself only a subordinate star of the great Agni, Mahavishnu, in whom is centred the Bhu. Mahavishnu is the Virat Purusha who as Agni pours Himself out into the forms of sun and star. He is Agni Twashtá, Visvakarman, he is also Prajápati and Matariswan. These are the three primal Purushas of the earth life,—Agni Twashta, Prajápáti & Matariswan, all of them soul bodies of Mahavishnu. Agni Twashta having made the Sun out of the Apas or waters of being, Prajapati as Surya Savitri enters into the Sun and takes possession of it. He multiplies himself in the Suris or Solar Gods who are the souls of the flames of Surya, the Purushas of the female solar energies. Then he creates out of this solar body of Vishnu the planets each of which successively becomes the Bhumi or place of manifestation for Manu, the mental being, who is the nodus of manifest life-existence and the link between the life and the spirit. The present earth in its turn appears as the scene of life, Mars being its last theatre. In the Bhumi Agni Twashta is again the first principle, Matariswan the second, finally, Prajapati appears in the form of the four Manus, chatváro manavah. Not in the physical world at first, but in the mental world which stands behind the earth-life; for earth has seven planes of being, the material of which the scenes and events are alone normally visible to the material senses, the vital of which man’s pranakosha is built and to which it is responsive, the mental to which his manahkosha is attached, the ideal governing his vijnanakosha, the beatific which supports his anandakosha, & the dynamic and essential to which he has not [p.1323] yet developed corresponding koshas, but only unformed nimbuses of concrete being. All the gods throw out their linga-rupas into these worlds of earth and through them carry on her affairs; for these lingas repeat there in the proper terms of life upon earth the conscious movements of the gods in their higher existences in the worlds above Bhu. The Manus manifested in the Manoloka of Bhu bring pressure to bear upon the earth for the manifestation of life and mind. Prajapati as Rudra then begins to form life upon earth, first in vegetable, then in animal forms. Man already exists but as a god or demigod in Bhuvarloka of Bhu, not as a man upon earth. There he is Deva, Asura, Rakshasa, Pramatha, Pisacha, Pashu or as Deva he is either Gandharva[,] Yaksha, Vidyadhara or any of the Karmadevas. For Man is a son of the Manu and is assigned his place in Div & Pradiv, in Heaven & in the Swargabhumis. Thence he descends to earth and thither from earth he returns. All that will be explained afterwards. When the human body is ready, then he descends upon earth and occupies it. He is not a native of earth, nor does he evolve out of the animal. His manifestation in animal form is always a partial incarnation, as will be seen hereafter.”

      Earth is the Bhūmi, one who grows, expands, widens, becomes richer and richer in the expressions of the manifesting Spirit, all in the Will, Saṃpalka, of her Lord, the Supreme.

      The occult is, the “present earth in its turn appears as the scene of life, Mars being its last theatre.” We have no idea what kind of the evolutionary process was present during that phase and, therefore, one could possibly say that the Mārtāṇda episode wasn’t there.

      The Mother says: “It reminded me of Théon who said that the world had been put forth and reabsorbed six times; in other words, that there had been six creations and six pralayas. And that now we were in the seventh creation, the last.” [6 May 1967] This looks to belong to the earth-story only.

      The Gita speaks of dissolution: “It is by the unity of this spiritual nature that the world is sustained, yayedam dhāryate jagat, even as it is that from which it is born with all its becomings, etad-yonīni bhūtāni sarvāṇi, and that also which withdraws the whole world and its existences into itself in the hour of dissolution, aham kṛtsnasya jagataḥ prabhavaḥ pralayas tathā.” [Essays on the Gita]. So do the Puranas. This should imply the evolutionary Supreme as Mārtāṇda has been there, specifically connected with the earth, this मृत्युलोक, the world of the mortals.

      But there is no mention about it in the Martian epoch, if there was the knowledge of it. The deep history of the Creation seems to be in its depths kept away, that which will come to light only with the Supramental’s growing manifestation upon earth making, perhaps, surer of the earth to be holding in the splendour of its everything, that there would not be any necessity to change the “significant centre” to some other place.

      1. For the moment, all seems to be concentrated on earth. But later on, all these notions of time and space will be remoulded within the supramentalized consciousness. Maybe, then, will it be a kind of general synthesis where all the former worlds having existed before the six pralayas will be fused with this one. In that perspective, hard to say that Mārtāṇda is related only to earth. It may be so because of the necessity of a concentrated action on a special point (earth) representative of the whole universe. But with the new world being “born. born, born”, these actual physical limitations of space and time, as also the traditional limitations between life and death, all this will change at a scale “much larger than the difference between man and animal”. This huge difference in the level of consciousness between human and the supramentalized being has struck me from long ago.

        1. That is of course a likelihood. But Sri Aurobindo ‘refused’ to talk about anything beyond the immediate perspectives of the earth; talking about that would be speculative. He said he would leave it for the supermind to decide. In “The Life Divine” we have the following:

          “A question might arise whether the gnostic reversal, the passage into a gnostic evolution and beyond it would not mean sooner or later the cessation of the evolution from the Inconscience, since the reason for that obscure beginning of things here would cease. This depends on the farther question whether the movement between the Superconscience and the Inconscience as the two poles of existence is an abiding law of the material manifestation or only a provisional circumstance. The latter supposition is difficult to accept because of the tremendous force of pervasiveness and durability with which the inconscient foundation has been laid for the whole material universe. Any complete reversal or elimination of the first evolutionary principle would mean the simultaneous manifestation of the secret involved consciousness in every part of this vast universal Inconscience; a change in a particular line of Nature such as the earth-line could not have any such all-pervading effect: the manifestation in earth-nature has its own curve and the completion of that curve is all that we have to consider. Here this much might be hazarded that in the final result of the revelatory creation or reproduction of the upper hemisphere of conscious being in the lower triplicity the evolution here, though remaining the same in its degrees and stages, would be subjected to the law of harmony, the law of unity in diversity and of diversity working out unity: it would be no longer an evolution through strife; it would become a harmonious development from stage to stage, from lesser to greater light, from type to higher type of the power and beauty of a self-unfolding existence. It would only be otherwise if for some reason the law of struggle and suffering still remained necessary for the working out of that mysterious possibility in the Infinite whose principle underlies the plunge into the Inconscience. But for the earth-nature it would seem as if this necessity might be exhausted once the supramental gnosis had emerged from the Inconscience. A change would begin with its firm appearance; that change would be consummated when the supramental evolution became complete and rose into the greater fullness of a supreme manifestation of the Existence-Consciousness-Delight, Sachchidananda.”

          Mark the following: “a change in a particular line of Nature such as the earth-line could not have any such all-pervading effect: the manifestation in earth-nature has its own curve and the completion of that curve is all that we have to consider.”

  21. We may note that in the Indian classical tradition a bride receives benediction from the elders to be the mother of eight sons, ashtaputra saubhagyavati bhava, अष्टपुत्र सौभाग्यवती भव, be of good auspicious fortune. This certainly has original association with Rig Veda’s Aditi and her eight sons, she अ॒ष्टपु॒त्रा, ashtaputrā.

  22. The Divine Presence in the Inconscient is what we have in the Rig Veda’s revelation about Mārtānda. Apropos of it here are a few short Notes from the Mother’s Conversations.

    8 November 1958
    I began descending into the mental atmosphere, in search of the little light, of that which responds … And it literally pulled me downwards as into a hole, but in such a material way. And I had the impression — I saw it. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edges — it seemed that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more room — not even for the consciousness — to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply. Finally, when my head began touching my knees, I asked myself, ‘But what is there at the bottom of this … this hole?’

    And I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depths and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into a formless, limitless vast which was infinitely comfortable — not exactly warm, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth. And it was all-powerful, with an infinite richness.

    It did not have any kind of form, and it had no limits. It was as if this vast were made of countless, imperceptible points — points that were of a deep warm gold. And all this was absolutely LIVING, with a power that seemed infinite. And yet motionless.

    It seemed to contain a whole wealth of possibilities, and all this that was formless had the power to become form.

    I said to myself, ‘Ah, so that’s it! It came to give me my message for the new year!’ Then I transcribed the experience. I have not described anything. I have only stated a fact:

    At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, generator of all creation.

    And then down into this hole I saw something like the reflection of a glimmer coming from ‘something’ beyond. And as I descended I saw the rock edges; and they were really black rocks, as if cut with a chisel, cuts so fresh that they glistened, with edges as sharp as knives.

    And so, physically, the body followed. My body has been taught to express the inner experience to a certain extent. In the body there is the body-force or the body-form or the body-spirit, and this is what leaves the body last when one dies, usually taking a period of seven days to leave. With special training, it can acquire a conscious life — independent and conscious — to such a degree that not only in a state of trance, but even in a cataleptic state it can produce sounds and even make the body move. Thus, through training, the body begins to have somnambulistic capacities. Yesterday evening I had gone out of my body, but my body was participating. And then I was pulled downwards. I was, at the bottom of the hole! And it was absolutely as if a tremendous, almighty spring were there, and then I was cast out of the abyss into a vastness. I followed all this without objectifying it in the least. And after this rather painful descent, there was a kind of super-comfort, an ease to the utmost. A perfect immobility in a sense of eternity with an extraordinary INTENSITY of movement and life, inner intensity, unmanifested; it was within, self-contained. And motionless and it was in a life so immeasurable that it can only be expressed metaphorically as infinite. And with an intensity, a POWER, a force and a peace, the peace of eternity. A silence, a calm. A POWER capable of … of EVERYTHING. Everything.

    I had utterly the feeling of being cast into the origin of the supramental creation — something that is already objectified from the Supreme, with the explicit goal of the supramental creation. There was such a superabundant feeling of power, of warmth, of gold. It was not fluid, it was like a powdering, like living gold. I cannot say it was sparkling, I cannot say it was dark, nor was it made of light, either: a multitude of tiny points of gold, nothing but that. It was a splendour! And the feeling of a plenitude, the PEACE of omnipotence. It was rich, it was full.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/1/november-8-1958

    7 November 1961
    There is also what Théon and Madame Théon used to say. They never spoke of ‘Supermind,’ but they said the same thing as the Vedas, that the world of Truth must incarnate on earth and create a new world. They even picked up the old phrase from the Gospels, ‘new heavens and a new earth,’ which is the same thing the Vedas speak of. Madame Théon successively left twelve different bodies, one after another. She was extremely ‘developed,’ — individualised, organised. She could leave one body and enter the consciousness of the next plane, fully experience the surroundings and all that was there, describe it… and so on, twelve times.

    I learned to do the same thing, and with great dexterity.

    I was, wanting to pass over to the other side, when I found myself in the presence of the ‘principle,’ a principle of the human form. It didn’t resemble man as we are used to seeing him, but it was an upright form, standing just on the border between the world of forms and the Formless. I was on the verge of discovering a secret.

    When I met Sri Aurobindo and talked to him about it, he told me, ‘It is surely the prototype of the supramental form.’ I saw it several times again, later on, and this proved to be true.

    Once the border has been crossed, there is no more ‘ascent’ and ‘descent’; you have the feeling of rising up only at the very start, while leaving the terrestrial consciousness and emerging into the higher mind. But once you have gone beyond that, there’s no notion of rising; there’s a sense, instead, of a sort of inner transformation. I would redescend, re-entering my bodies one after another — there is a real feeling of re-entry; it actually produces friction. When one is on that highest height, the body is in a cataleptic state. I made this experiment in 1904, so when I arrived here it was all a work accomplished and a well-known domain; and when the question of finding the Supermind came up, I had only to resume an experience I was used to — I had learned to repeat it at will, through successive exteriorisations. It was a voluntary process

    I descended into the Inconscient and I found the Divine Presence — there, in the midst of Darkness. When I looked at him, he woke up and opened his eyes, expressing the beginning of conscious, wakeful action

    When I returned from Japan Sri Aurobindo had already brought the supramental light into the mental world and was trying to transform the Mind. ‘It’s strange,’ he said to me, ‘it’s an endless work! Nothing seems to get done — everything is done and then constantly has to be done all over again.’ Then I gave him my personal impression, which went back to the old days with Théon: ‘It will be like that until we touch bottom.’ So instead of continuing to work in the Mind, both of us descended almost immediately (it was done in a day or two) from the Mind into the Vital, and so on quite rapidly, leaving the Mind as it was, fully in the light but not permanently transformed.

    Then a strange thing happened. When we were in the Vital, my body suddenly became young again. This lasted for a few months. Then we descended into the Physical — and all the trouble began. But we didn’t stay in the Physical, we descended into the Subconscient and from the Subconscient to the Inconscient. That was how we worked. And it was only when I descended into the Inconscient that I found the Divine Presence — there, in the midst of Darkness.

    It wasn’t the first time; when I was working with Théon at Tlemçen (the second time I was there), I descended into the total, unindividualised — that is, general — Inconscient. And there I suddenly found myself in front of something like a vault or a grotto, and when it opened, I saw a Being of iridescent light reclining with his head on his hand, fast asleep. All the light around him was iridescent. When I told Théon what I was seeing, he said it was ‘the immanent God in the depths of the Inconscient,’ who through his radiations was slowly waking the Inconscient to Consciousness.

    But then a rather remarkable phenomenon occurred: when I looked at him, he woke up and opened his eyes, expressing the beginning of conscious, wakeful action.

    I have experienced the descent into the Inconscient many times; this experience of finding there the Divine Consciousness, the Divine Presence happened quite frequently. One can realise the Divine in the Inconscient rather quickly. But does the direct junction between the supreme Consciousness and the Inconscient give the power to transform the Inconscient just like that, without any intermediary? I don’t think so.

    One thing is certain — as soon as one goes beyond the terrestrial atmosphere, beyond the higher mind’s ‘highest’ region, the sensation of ‘high’ and ‘low’ totally vanishes. There are no longer movements of ascent and descent.

    ‘It is by rising to the summit of consciousness through a progressive ascent… that one unites with the Supermind. But as soon as the union is achieved, one knows and one sees that the Supermind exists in the heart of the Inconscient as well. When one is in that state, there is neither high nor low. But generally, it is by redescending through the levels of the being with a supramentalized consciousness that one can accomplish the permanent transformation of physical nature.’

    There is no proof that the Vedic Rishis used another method, although, to effect this transformation they must necessarily have fought their way through the powers of inconscience and obscurity. The Veda simply recounts what the forefathers have done. But who are these forefathers?
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/november-7-1961

    28 July 1961
    I have had the experience of being ‘missioned,’ so to speak, in a form of Love and Consciousness combined — divine Love in its supreme purity, divine Consciousness in its supreme purity — and emanated DIRECTLY, without passing through all the intermediate states, directly into the nethermost depths of the Inconscient. And there I had the impression of being, or rather of finding a symbolic Being in deep sleep … so veiled that he was almost invisible. Then, at my contact, the veil seemed to be rent and, without his awakening, there was a sort of radiation spreading out…. I can still see my vision.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/2/july-28-1961

    5 November 1961
    It was not by choice that I met all the four Asuras — it was a decision of the Supreme. The first one, whom religions call Satan, the Asura of Consciousness, was converted and is still at work. The second [the Asura of Suffering] annulled himself in the Supreme. The third was the Lord of Death (that was Théon). And the fourth, the Master of the world, was the Lord of Falsehood; Richard was an emanation, a vibhuti, as they say in India, of this Asura.

    Théon was the vibhuti of the Lord of Death.

    Anyway, it was because of Théon that I first found the ‘Mantra of Life,’ the mantra that gives life, and he wanted me to give it to him, he wanted to possess it — it was something formidable! It was the mantra that gives life (it can make anyone at all come back into life, but that’s only a small part of its power). And it was shut away in a particular place, sealed up, with my name in Sanskrit on it. I didn’t know Sanskrit at that time, but he did, and when he led me to that place, I told him what I saw: ‘There’s a sort of design, it must be Sanskrit.’ (I could recognize the characters as Sanskrit). He told me to reproduce what I was seeing, and I did so. It was my name, Mirra, written in Sanskrit — the mantra was for me and I alone could open it. ‘Open it and tell me what’s there,’ he said. All this was going on while I was in a cataleptic trance. Then immediately something in me knew, and I answered, ‘No,’ and did not read it.

    I found it again when I was with Sri Aurobindo; I gave it to him.

    Théon knew the existence of Supermind, ‘the new world’ or ‘the new creation on earth and the glorified body’; it had been revealed to him and he announced its coming. He said it would be reached through the discovery of the God within. And for him this meant a greater density — which seems to be a correct experience. I have made investigations and had innumerable visions concerning the earth’s history, and I spoke about it a good deal with Sri Aurobindo.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/november-5-1961

    15 January 1962
    Two things were stolen: that note [it predicted Chinese revolution] and the mantra of life. And I have a suspicion that it was an occult theft, because no one even suspected the value of those papers — for most people they had no interest at all.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/january-15-1962

    24 May 1962
    73—When Wisdom comes, her first lesson is, “There is no such thing as knowledge; there are only aperçus (glimpses) of the Infinite Deity.”

    74—Practical knowledge is a different thing; that is real and serviceable, but it is never complete. Therefore to systematise and codify it is necessary but fatal.

    I had thought that if one could get a total, complete and perfect knowledge of the whole working of physical Nature as we perceive it in the world of Ignorance, then this might be a means to rediscover or re-attain the Truth of things.

    Both paths may be leading towards a third point, and that third point is what I am at present; I am in quest of it — the point where the two paths merge into a third, the true thing.

    The approach through inner experience is equally fatal. It reveals only one truth of the Whole. As indispensable is the other; when I was so utterly in that supreme Realisation, this other falsified; outer realisation was undeniably just a distortion of something equally true. This “something” is what we are seeking, perhaps not merely seeking — we may be taking part in the making of it.

    These “spiritual” and “materialist” positions considered as exclusive are inadequate; even accepting and uniting them both won’t solve the problem. Something else is needed, a third position that isn’t the result of these two but something still to be discovered; that could open the door to total Knowledge.

    Ultimately, it’s always the same: realise your own being, enter into conscious contact with the supreme Truth of your own being. We must live that truth. Who knows? Perhaps the very multiplicity of approaches will yield the Secret.

    A certain number of individuals would seem indispensable for this Truth to be concretised and realised. One avatar all alone cannot realise the supramental life on earth. There aren’t different individuals and personalities, it’s all one and the same Being. But the same Being expressing itself in a particular way that for us translates as a group or a collectivity.

    With the two experiences of the outer life and of total and perfect union with the Origin I have had I know that knowing and uniting the two approaches is not enough; they open out on a third thing, that what is… in the making. The third thing is what can lead to the Realisation, to the Truth we seek.

    Using the sense of inner dimensions, and through perfecting the consciousness of the inner dimensions, I used to observe the relation between the material and the spiritual worlds.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/may-24-1962

    29 May 1962
    You are used to this sort of existence; and it’s dreary and it’s sad. Well, behind it all there is a fairy tale. There is something in the making, that’s going to be inexpressibly beautiful. We shall take part in it. Human beings aren’t that limited; above all the main reason is want of desire, for fun.

    I was told: “It depends on you alone, not on circumstances — above all, don’t blame circumstances; you must find it in yourself, the transformative element is within you. And you can do it wherever you are, even in a cell at the bottom of a hole.” The groundwork was already done, you see, since the body never asked for anything.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/may-29-1962

    31 May 1962
    There’s a strange thing that happens to me all the time, at least fifty times a day (and it’s particularly clear at night). In its most external form it’s like moving from one room to another. Being in one room is reflected outwardly by quite a comfortable condition, a state where there’s no pain anywhere, and a great peace — a joyous peace, a state of perfect calm, an ideal condition which sometimes lasts a long, long time.

    For a certain number of hours at night this state is practically constant. And then suddenly, with no perceptible or apparent reason, you seem to… FALL into the other room, as though you had made a false step — and then you have a pain.

    Oh, nowadays I constantly make a distinction between … the straight-line, right-angle life and the undulating life. One life I might describe like this: everything is sharp-edged, hard, angular, and you’re constantly bumping into things; and then there’s an undulating life, very sweet, with a great charm but not too stable. It’s a completely different kind of life. Well, my story belonged to that world. There was nothing here; it was something like like waves. And it was very joyous and carefree.

    What’s needed is the path of vastness, widening, relaxation, ease, of blossoming in the vital — not so much a censorial vital. The vital blossoming into beauty: sweetness and beauty.

    The body has been cradled by three Words. Words repeat themselves automatically, with no effort of will. The words provide an accompaniment, of subtle, physical vibrations, which has built up a certain state or experience, a sort of association between the presence of those words and this movement of eternal Life, that undulating vibration. And the rhythm of the Words quite naturally brings about a certain vibration, which in turn brings about the state.

    What counts is the sincerity of the aspiration, the exactness of the expression and the power; that is, the power that comes from the mantra being accepted. The mantra has been accepted by the supreme Power, and so it automatically contains a certain force and power. But it is purely personal. It represents what you put into it — your aspiration. To me it can represent only ONE thing…. I call it “the Supreme”. For me, the most concrete approach to this is through the vibration of pure Love; not love for something, a love you give or receive, but Love in itself: Love. To associate a certain state and a certain aspiration with a certain sound helps the body.

    It was the first sound that came from the body when I had that last experience [April 13]. Along with the first pain, came that first sound — so it must be quite well rooted. And it brings in exactly that vibration of eternal Life: the first thing I felt, all of a sudden, was a kind of strong calm, confident and smiling.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/may-31-1962

    17 November 1962
    I went to a realm in the vital world which is right above the earth. I went there — it was rather dark, very dark in fact — and that tall being was there, the Lord of Falsehood. He’s very tall and all black. I went to that place and found him there. He was gloating and told me to take a look around. From there you had a panoramic view of everything. And no sooner did I arrive than a storm broke out — a terrible storm.

    I kept watching, and then I saw in this direction, I saw two nearly simultaneous flashes of lightning. The first one, a terrific bolt, came and fell from the east; and just a moment after, very soon after, another came from the west. The two didn’t come together, but they fell on the same spot — they didn’t meet but they fell on the same spot.

    I even remarked to myself, “Well, it’s interesting to have such a close view of it.” And he was there next to me, gloating, standing some distance off to my right. He was jubilant, gloating: “You see, you see, you see!” Overjoyed. I kept absolutely still; everything was still, calm, motionless. And then I stopped everything. The storm’s only purpose was to cause the two thunderbolts, and it stopped after they fell on the earth. And then the flames… the whole area was set ablaze: vroom! Then I said, “Ah, that didn’t last long. They quickly brought it under control.” With that he turned his back on me; he went off one way, I the other. Then I regained my outer consciousness.

    Two days later I asked for news. “Oh,” I was told, “they seem tired out. They’re no longer doing anything.”

    I’ve had my eye on this gentleman since the Second World War (and even earlier), and I know that’s just what he wants. He has foretold all sorts of catastrophic things. Because it can set things back thousands of years.

    But I always wonder… because Sri Aurobindo left without revealing his secret. He said he was leaving DELIBERATELY — that much he told me. He told me what I needed to know. But he never said the moment hadn’t come, he never said if he’d seen that things were not sufficiently ready. He told me “the world is not ready,” that much he did say. He told me he was going away deliberately because it was “necessary,” and that I had to stay and continue the work, that I would continue.

    If a new world war starts, it’s obviously going to be something unspeakable, frightful, frightful — whole civilisations will be swallowed up. It will put a stop to life on earth in a terrible way. Is that what made people…? Has this awakened some aspiration? Possibly. There’s clearly a greater receptivity. I see this from the fact that whenever the Will spreads out, well, it has a more concrete and more immediate effect.

    One day I had a sensation of one of those profound upheavals… something very widespread and full of great pain. So in me spontaneously sprang up from the deep psychic being, and said, “Oh! Lord, is it Your will that we have this experience again?” Then everything stabilised and there was a splendour of Light.

    Somewhere, in a place which is not here [physically], some place, there is something that keeps very still, somewhere, very still and beyond all the movements of forces; something seated, as it were, established somewhere, very still. As if it has truly been decided that this time the experience will go right to the end, right to its goal, without interruption. The Something that has made the decision and sticks to it. But one must see and live in those higher regions.

    Everything Sri Aurobindo said has always come true.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/november-17-1962

    13 March 1968
    This morning again, I spent some time looking, seeing, and I seemed to ask the Divine, “Why do You enjoy denying Yourself?…” You understand, for our logic to be satisfied, we say, all that is dark, all that is ugly, all that isn’t living, all that isn’t harmonious — none of that is divine. But how could it be so?… It’s only an attitude for action. So putting myself in the consciousness of action, I said, “But why do You enjoy being like that!” (Mother laughs)

    When one has got hold of that, the world will be able to change. And when I say “one,” I don’t mean a person…. There may be something equivalent to THE Person, but that… That too, I am not sure it’s not a projection of our consciousness onto something eluding us.

    Sri Aurobindo always said that if you go far enough beyond the Impersonal, once you go beyond, you find something we may call “the Person,” but which has nothing at all to do with what we imagine the “Person” to be.

    And there, all that remains… all that remains is That! And That is what has the power. But even when we say, “All that remains is That” (laughing), we situate it WITHIN something else!… Words and language are unsuited to express something that exceeds the consciousness. As soon as you formulate it, you bring it down.
    https://incarnateword.in/agenda/9/march-13-1968

    This forms Chapter 12 of my book “Yoga-Yajña for the Divine Body” to be published soon. It can also be accessed at
    https://savitri.in/blogs/light-of-supreme/12-the-divine-presence-in-the-inconscient

  23. Here is Sri Aurobindo’s poem about the Inconscient Shiva:

    Shiva: The Inconscient Creator
    A face on the cold dire mountain peaks
    Grand and still; its lines white and austere
    Match with the unmeasured snowy streaks
    Cutting heaven, implacable and sheer.

    Above it a mountain of matted hair
    Aeon-coiled on that deathless and lone head
    In its solitude huge of lifeless air
    Round, above illimitably spread.

    A moon-ray on the forehead, blue and pale,
    Stretched afar its finger of still light
    Illumining emptiness. Stern and male
    Mask of peace indifferent in might!

    But out from some Infinite born now came
    Over giant snows and the still face
    A quiver and colour of crimson flame,
    Fire-point in immensities of space.

    Light-spear-tips revealed the mighty shape,
    Tore the secret veil of the heart’s hold;
    In that diamond heart the fires undrape,
    Living core, a brazier of gold.

    This was the closed mute and burning source
    Whence were formed the worlds and their star-dance;
    Life sprang a self-rapt inconscient Force,
    Love, a blazing seed, from that flame-trance.

  24. This was the closed mute and burning source
    Whence were formed the worlds and their star-dance;
    Life sprang a self-rapt inconscient Force,
    Love, a blazing seed, from that flame-trance.
    Sri Aurobindo’s Shiva the Inconscient Creator.
    ***
    How did all that happen? How was Achiteshwara born, one with No-Consciousness, the Lord of Inconscience? And for what? The ancient allusion is to Rig Veda’s Mārtāṇda.

    What had happened was a curious freak,
    That quirk in its limitless freedom. Sure,
    From his home of fortunes Anandadharma
    Had stepped out and travelled far, in cold night.
    He had to visit Achiteshwara
    Notwithstanding a blind unsafe journey
    Down artless inclines, erring through nightyears
    Of god’s dimnesses. As dimensions grew
    Dubious suns ’gan to enter the chasm
    And thickened quickly malicious shadows.
    At every place sprang up abnormal forks
    As if caprice-laden were chill spaces
    In the unknown’s chest. Achiteshwara
    Had chosen the inclement realm of nought
    For his dwelling and lived there aimingly,
    Yet lost to himself. On night’s rocks he read
    Starry hieroglyphs of deep occult wars,
    Their terrible pangs and their triumphs too.
    Weapons of mass destruction were deployed
    And in the adversary’s arms had slipped
    Silences. But the spirit’s crudity
    Could not be if there were no joy. All breathes
    In it, the strange ether of ecstasy.
    Daughters swam in wrongful streams, and black swans
    Made more inauspicious the milieu,
    And strange noises filled the air, and tart smells
    Weighed humidly in the sky. Yet there burned
    The fire of an unkindled sacredness
    And in sevenfold loud repetition
    Was performed the yajña. Prompt offerings
    Agni carried to the respective gods,
    Deities fashioning new destinies.
    Achiteshwara hailed Anandadharma
    And gave him the garland of hid virtues.
    Oh the opulent hospitality
    Spread over æons in lyrical chimes!
    [1 August 2004]

  25. This inconscient God, or Achiteshwara, or Shiva the inconscient Creator, or Mārtāṇda is Satyavān in the Mahābhārata stroy of Savitri.
    ***
    About Satyāvan the Mother says:
    Savitri represents the Mother’s Consciousness, doesn’t she?
    Yes.
    What does Satyavan represent?
    Well, he is the Avatar. He is the incarnation of the Supreme
    9 December 1953, CWM, Vol 5, p. 390.
    ***
    And in “Savitri”:

    He is my soul that climbs from nescient Night
    Through life and mind and supernature’s Vast
    To the supernal light of Timelessness
    And my eternity hid in moving Time
    And my boundlessness cut by the curve of Space. ||155.4||
    It climbs to the greatness it has left behind
    And to the beauty and joy from which it fell,
    To the closeness and sweetness of all things divine,
    To light without bounds and life illimitable,
    Taste of the depths of the Ineffable’s bliss,
    Touch of the immortal and the infinite. ||155.5||
    He is my soul that gropes out of the beast
    To reach humanity’s heights of lucent thought,
    And the vicinity of Truth’s sublime. ||155.6||
    He is the godhead growing in human lives
    And in the body of earth-being’s forms,
    He is the soul of man climbing to God
    In Nature’s surge out of earth’s ignorance. ||155.7||
    ***
    Satyavān himself tells to Savitri:

    The child of the Void shall be reborn in God. ||103.46||
    My Matter shall evade the Inconscient’s trance,
    My body like my spirit shall be free:
    It shall escape from Death and Ignorance.||103.47||
    ***
    That will be the fruitful end of the Rig Ved’a Mārtāṇda, that he will not be born again to die. He shall be, not immortal, but deathless. Aditi that is Savitri will take him again to the world of the gods, rather those luminous gods shall come to his world to grow in the possibilities of the Infinite, to grow in the dimensions of the expanding Spirit.

  26. As from a womb obscure he saw emerge
    The body and visage of a dark Unseen
    Hidden behind the fair outside of life. ||56.1||
    Its dangerous commerce is our suffering’s cause. ||56.2||
    Its breath is a subtle poison in men’s hearts;
    All evil starts from that ambiguous face. ||56.3||
    A peril haunted now the common air;
    The world grew full of menacing Energies,
    And wherever turned for help or hope his eyes,
    In field and house, in street and camp and mart,
    He met the prowl and stealthy come and go
    Of armed disquieting bodied Influences. ||56.4||
    A march of goddess figures dark and nude
    Alarmed the air with grandiose unease;
    Appalling footsteps drew invisibly near,
    Shapes that were threats invaded the dream-light,
    And ominous beings passed him on the road
    Whose very gaze was a calamity:
    A charm and sweetness sudden and formidable,
    Faces that raised alluring lips and eyes
    Approached him armed with beauty like a snare,
    But hid a fatal meaning in each line
    And could in a moment dangerously change. ||56.5||
    ***
    But the Yogi endures:

    A lifeless vacancy was now his breast,
    And in the place where once was luminous thought,
    Only remained like a pale motionless ghost
    An incapacity for faith and hope
    And the dread conviction of a vanquished soul
    Immortal still but with its godhead lost,
    Self lost and God and touch of happier worlds. ||60.17||
    But he endured, stilled the vain terror, bore
    The smothering coils of agony and affright;
    Then peace returned and the soul’s sovereign gaze. ||60.18||
    To the blank horror a calm Light replied:
    Immutable, undying and unborn,
    Mighty and mute the Godhead in him woke
    And faced the pain and danger of the world. ||60.19||
    He mastered the tides of Nature with a look:
    He met with his bare spirit naked Hell. ||60.20||

  27. https://www.vyasaonline.com/encyclopedia/adityas/ describes the following:

    Adityas
    Āditya (Sanskrit: आदित्य), meaning “of Aditi or related to Aditi”, refers to the offsprings of Aditi. Adityas are solar class deities. In the Rigveda, the Ādityas are the seven celestial deities, sons of Āditi, headed by Varuna, followed by Mitra: They are: Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Anśa or Aṃśa, Dhātṛ or Dakṣa, and Indra. The eighth Āditya (Mārtanda) was rejected by Aditi, leaving seven sons. In the Yajurveda (Taittirīya Samhita), their number is given as eight, and the last one is believed to be Vivasvāna. Hymn LXXII of Rig Veda, Book 10, also confirms that there are eight Adityas, the eight one being Mārtanda, who is later revived back as Vivasvāna. The Adityas being Solar deities have been described in the Rig Veda as bright and pure as streams of water, free from all guile and falsehood, blameless, perfect. These class of deities have been attributed to as upholding the movables and immovable Dharma. Adityas are beneficent Gods who act as protectors of all beings, who are provident and guard the world of spirits. In the form of Mitra-Varuna, the Adityas are true to the eternal Law and act as the debt exactors. In present day usage in Sanskrit, the term Aditya has been made singular in contrast to Vedic Adityas, and are being used synonymous with Surya, the Sun.There is differences regarding the number of Adityas as per various non-vedic texts.The Vedas do not identify the Ādityas and there is no classification of the thirty-three gods, except for in the Yajurveda (7.19), which says there are eleven gods in heaven (light space), eleven gods in atmosphere (intermediate space), and eleven gods in earth (observer space). In the Satapatha Brahmana, the number of Ādityas is eight in some passages, and in other texts of the same Brahmana, twelve Adityas are mentioned. The list of 12 Adityas is as follows: Aṃśa, Aryaman, Bhaga, Dakṣa, Dhātṛ, Indra, Mitra, Ravi, Savitṛ, Sūrya or Arka, Varuṇa, and Yama. Āditya in the Chāndogya-Upaniṣad is also a name of Viṣṇu, in his Avatar known as Vāmana, the dwarf, his mother is Aditi. Another such list, from the Vishnu Purana is: Aṃśa, Aryaman, Bhaga, Dhūti, Mitra, Pūṣan, Śakra, Savitṛ, Tvaṣṭṛ, Varuṇa, Viṣṇu, Vivasvat.

    In Vishnu Puran
    There were twelve celebrated deities in a former Manvantara, called Tushitas, who, upon the approach of the present period, or in the reign of the last Manu, Chakshusha, assembled, and said to one another,

    “Come, let us quickly enter into the womb of Aditi, that we may be born in the next Manvantara, for thereby we shall again enjoy the rank of gods.”

    And accordingly they were born the sons of Kashyapa, the son of Marichi, by Aditi, the daughter of Daksha; thence named the twelve Adityas; whose appellations were respectively, Vishnu, Sakra, Aryaman, Dhuti, Twashtri, Pushan, Vivaswat, Savitri, Mitra, Varuna, Ansha, and Bhaga. These, who in the Chakshusha Manvantara were the gods called Tushitas, were called the twelve Adityas in the Manvantara of Vaivaswata, which is the current Manvantara.

  28. We have “in the Puranic mythus Vishnu is sleeping on the serpent Infinite in the milky ocean.”
    https://incarnateword.in/sabcl/16/heraclitus-ii

    This is Seshanaga, “shesha” the left over, the Supreme stationed in the last Nothingness, resting on a thousandhodoed Serpent, Naga, he after emptying himself out poised to start a new creation with the possibility of the divine multitude.
    ***
    Saraswatie is the daughter of Brahma and has inherited the creative power of her father, the wife of Vishnou and shares the preservative energy of her husband; Vasuquie, also, and Seshanaga, the great serpent with his hosts, whose name means finiteness and who represents Time and Space; he upholds the world on his hundred colossal hoods and is the couch of the Supreme who is Existence.
    https://incarnateword.in/sabcl/27/to-my-brother-manmohan-ghose

  29. Here is one more comment of the Mother about the ‘surhomme’:

    On 8 October 1959, a child asked the Mother at the Ashram Playground: ‘Mother, will there not be any intermediary states between man and overman [le surhomme]?’ The Mother answered: “There will probably be many.” It seems that She wanted to make sure that the questioner was aware of the true meaning of the terms. So She said: “Man and overman? You are not speaking of the new supramental race [i.e. superman], are you? Are you really speaking of what we here call the overman, that is: the human being born in the human way and trying to transform his physical being which he has received by his ordinary human birth?”

    She continued: “There will certainly be a countless number of partial realizations. The degree of transformation will differ according to each one’s capacity, and it is certain that there will be a considerable number of more or less fruitful or unfruitful attempts before arriving at something like overman, and even those [the overmen] will be more or less successful attempts. All those who make an effort to go beyond ordinary nature; all those who try to realize materially the profound experience which has brought them into contact with the divine Truth; all those who, instead of taking as their aim the Beyond or the Highest, try to realize physically, externally, the change of consciousness they have realized within themselves — all those are apprentice-overmen. Among them there are innumerable differences in the success of their efforts. Each time we try not to be an ordinary man, not to live the ordinary life, to express in our movements, our actions and reactions the divine Truth, when we are governed by that Truth instead of being governed by the general ignorance, we are apprentice-overmen — according to the success of our efforts more or less able apprentices, more or less advanced on the way.” [‘Collected Works of the Mother’, Volume 9, p. 411]

  30. About her presence on earth the Mother made a revelatory statement: “Since the beginning of the earth wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of consciousness, I was there.” [March 14, 1952, p. 28]

    On an earlier she had said: “That which is speaking to you now, is a faithful servant of the Divine. From all time, since the beginning of the earth, as a faithful servant of the Divine, it has spoken in the name of its Master.” [CWM Vol 2, 1912, p. 77]

    Apropos of 29 February 1956, regarding the promise having been fulfilled, the Mother said: “It has been promised for such a very long time ever since the beginning of the earth.” [2 May 1956]

    About these things promised, Savitri upholds these to be as “decreed since the beginning of the worlds”. [||155.51||] Significantly, we also have in it the following about the formation of the earth:

    Awake to his hidden possibility,
    Awake to all that slept within his heart
    And all that Nature meant when earth was formed
    And the Spirit made this ignorant world his home,
    He shall aspire to Truth and God and Bliss. ||155.55||

    In these revelations we have phrases: “since the beginning of the earth”, “decreed since the beginning of the worlds”, “when earth was formed”. To the modern mind a question would arise as how the earth itself was formed and, if she was present in that earliest epoch also when there was nothing on the earth:

    In the crude beginnings of this mortal world
    Life was not nor mind’s play nor heart’s desire. ||36.7||
    When earth was built in the unconscious Void
    And nothing was save a material scene,
    Identified with sea and sky and stone
    Her young gods yearned for the release of souls
    Asleep in objects, vague, inanimate. ||36.8||
    In that desolate grandeur, in that beauty bare,
    In the deaf stillness, mid the unheeded sounds,
    Heavy was the uncommunicated load
    Of Godhead in a world that had no needs;
    For none was there to feel or to receive. ||36.9||
    This solid mass which brooked no throb of sense
    Could not contain their vast creative urge:
    Immersed no more in Matter’s harmony,
    The Spirit lost its statuesque repose. ||36.10||

    Was she present at that crude beginnings of this mortal world?

    The answer is “Yes”, if we are to give full unqualified answer to the assertion “since the beginning of the earth”. In other words, her birth is simultaneous with the appearance or birth of the earth itself. That has to be so, inevitably, if this earth was right from the beginning the world of the mortals, Mrityuloka, मृत्युलोक, earth created for a focused action, as a “significant centre”, earth where only is present the psychic being, which is not there even in the sun or anywhere else in the vast universe. Perhaps that was not the case in the earlier Mars experiment. This psychic being, the growing bit of the Divine, the Gita’s mamai aṃsha, himself is the preciousness of our earth, she becoming ever the darling of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

    That means Mārtānda, ‘the mortal egg’, also appears with the creation of the earth, this mrityuloka. That is the act of cosmic Aditi, she leaving him here with a profound intention, intention born of the Will of the Highest. That is the simultaneous appearance in the ancient tale of both ‘Satyavān’ and ‘Savitri’. With him she the ever immortal was “compelled to take the mortal birth”. Could that not be the revelation of the Rig Veda’s eighth son of Aditi, as much as “since the beginning of the earth”?

    Yet at what time in the history of time was earth formed? The mythology of the modern science says that it was approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The birth of the solar system from a cloud of dust and gas known as a solar nebula is its beginning. Gravity collapsed the material in on itself as it began to spin, forming the sun in the center of the nebula. “With the rise of the sun, the remaining material began to clump up. Small particles drew together, bound by the force of gravity, into larger particles. The solar wind swept away lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium, from the closer regions, leaving only heavy, rocky materials to create smaller terrestrial worlds like Earth. But farther away, the solar winds had less impact on lighter elements, allowing them to coalesce into gas giants. In this way, asteroids, comets, planets, and moons were created. Earth’s rocky core formed first, with heavy elements colliding and binding together. Dense material sank to the center, while the lighter pieces created the crust. The planet’s magnetic field probably formed around this time. Gravity captured some of the lighter elements that make up the planet’s early atmosphere.”

    Regarding earth specifically radiometric dating estimates this to be 4.5 billion years ago; both geologists and astronomers accept it. “This age has been obtained from the isotopic analysis of many meteorites as well as of soil and rock samples from the Moon by such dating methods as rubidium–strontium and uranium–lead.”

    Concerning the age of the earth, the Bible’s genealogical records estimate an age for the earth and universe of about 6000 years. Obviously, this needs to be revised.

    And when did life first appear on earth? The earliest life forms microscopic organisms (microbes) that left signals of their presence in rocks give the age about 3.7 billion years ago.

    And Humans? “They first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa. Most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans.”

    If these figures are to be accepted as the evolutionary chronology according to present-day science then a few hundred years for the Divine species to appear is extremely fast. Sri Aurobindo himself had said that it could be 500 years. Here is the Mother:

    “Before the transformation of the body?… This is a phenomenon of consciousness. For instance, the physical consciousness may have this experience even for years before the cells change. There is a great difference between the physical consciousness (the body consciousness) and the material body. This takes a long time, because it is a thing that has never been done. That state, as I have already told you, is a commonly known state which has been realised by some people, the most advanced, the highest among the mystics; but the transformation of the body has never been done by anyone. And it takes a terribly long time. Sri Aurobindo said—one day I asked him: “How long will it take to transform the body?” He did not hesitate, he said: “Oh! something like three hundred years.” [CWM, 20 May 1953]

    “The evolutionary being is the one that’s the continuation of the animals, and the other is a being from higher worlds who, when the earth was formed, materialised itself upon earth—it does not come from below, it has come from above. But in the evolutionary being there is that central light which is the origin of the psychic being, which will develop into the psychic being, and when the psychic being is fully formed, there is a moment [p. 323] when it can unite with a being from above which can incarnate in it. So this being from above which descends into a psychic being is an involutionary being — a being of the Overmind plane or from elsewhere.” [CWM 21 October 1953]

    But perhaps the whole process could be something like this: It is not that Man first appeared in Africa. He was first formed in the Manomaya World, in the World of Mind, as a mental being, and then as an involutionary being stepped into the earthly creation, the necessary bio-mental base being prepared by the tireless Nature. Man did not come from an ape, or even a highly evolved animal; he appeared from an “apelike” creature:

    In the prone obscure beginnings of the race
    The human grew in the bowed apelike man. ||117.81||

    Something gloriously similar is going to be for gnostic being of “The Life Divine”. This being will be first born in the Supramental World, formed there before he makes his appearance on earth. He will be first formed in the Vijñānamaya World and then he will involutionarily come into the evolutionary process.

    If Sri Aurobindo is occupied with the first, the Mother’s concern was the second. In the fusing of these two together will be the divine life in a divine body. That is the Yoga-Yajña they are busy with. Which means, a few hundred years is absolutely tachyonic, faster than light, the photon glowing with the psychic flame.

    1. “That means Mārtānda, ‘the mortal egg’, also appears with the creation of the earth, this mrityuloka. That is the act of cosmic Aditi, she leaving him here with a profound intention, intention born of the Will of the Highest.”

      So this might also be the revelation of to whom the promise was made (“It has been promised for such a very long time ever since the beginning of the earth.” [2 May 1956]): Why not to Her own eighth son Mārtānda himself, the One who opened his eyes when Mother came to Him when She was with Theon at the beginning of the 20th century? Mārtānda “involutionary coming in the evolutionary process”, as the Lord of the psychic realm?

    2. “This being will be first born in the Supramental World, formed there before he makes his appearance on earth.”
      Will be? Maybe it is ALREADY born in the Supramental World and he is ACTUALLY making his appearance on earth. (“Actually” meaning…within the next 300-500 years).

  31. I will have to look into all these Mārtāṇda-related comments again with a reasonable lapse of time, for their perceptions and clarity, and of course for the typos.

    I must thank Anurag for prompting me to do this job, which has been a wonderful pleasure indeed. But if there is something in these, I owe all to Them, absolutely to Them.

  32. Sri Aurobindo writes about Martanda in his book, ‘The Secret of the Veda’:

    ‘But if Surya is the creator, he who is, as the Veda says, the self of all that moves and all that is stable, and if this Surya is also the divine, “the wide-burning Truth that is lodged in the law which upholds heaven”, then all the worlds should manifest that law of the Truth and all of them should be so many heavens. Whence then comes this falsehood, sin, death, suffering of our mortal existence? We are told that there are eight sons of the cosmic Aditi who are born from her body; by seven she moves to the gods, but the eighth son is Martanda, of the mortal creation, whom she casts away from her; with the seven she moves to the supreme life, the original age of the gods, but Martanda is brought back out of the Inconscient into which he had been cast to preside over mortal birth and death.

    ‘This Martanda or eighth Surya is the black or dark, the lost, the hidden sun. The Titans have taken and concealed him in their cavern of darkness and thence he must be released into splendour and freedom by the gods and seers through the power of the sacrifice. In less figurative language the mortal life is governed by an oppressed, a hidden, a disguised Truth; just as Agni the divine seer-will works at first upon earth concealed or obscured by the smoke of human passion and self-will, so Surya the divine Knowledge lies concealed and unattainable in the night and darkness, is enveloped and contained in the ignorance and error of the ordinary human existence. The Seers by the power of truth in their thoughts discover this Sun lying in the darkness, they liberate this knowledge, this power of undivided and all-embracing vision, this eye of the gods concealed in our subconscient being; they release his radiances, they create the divine Dawn. Indra the divine Mind-power, Agni the Seer-Will, Brihaspati the Master of the inspired word, Soma the immortal Delight born in man aid them to shatter the strong places of the mountain, the artificial obstructions of the Titans are broken and this Sun soars up radiant into our heavens. Arisen he mounts to the supramental Truth. “He goes where the gods have made a path for him cleaving like an eagle to his goal”; he ascends with his seven shining horses to the utter luminous ocean of the higher existence; he is led over it by the seers as in a ship. Surya, the Sun, is himself perhaps the golden ship in which Pushan the Increaser leads men beyond evil and darkness and sin to the Truth and the Immortality.

    ‘This is the first aspect of Surya that he is the supreme Light of the truth attained by the human being after his liberation from the Ignorance. “Beholding a higher Light beyond this darkness we have followed it and reached the highest Light of all, Surya divine in the divine Being.” This is the Vedic way of putting the idea which we find more openly expressed in the Upanishads, the fairest form of Surya in which man sees everywhere the one Purusha with the liberated vision “He am I.” The higher light of Surya is that by which vision rises on our darkness and moves towards the superconscient, the highest that other greater Truth-vision which, having attained, moves in the farthest supreme world of the Infinite.’ [‘The Secret of the Veda’, pp. 478-479]

  33. Let us go to the opening Canto of “Savitri”, The Symbol Dawn. In it we have the following:

    There was the common light of earthly day. ||1.44||
    Affranchised from the respite of fatigue
    Once more the rumour of the speed of Life
    Pursued the cycles of her blinded quest. ||1.45||
    All sprang to their unvarying daily acts;
    The thousand peoples of the soil and tree
    Obeyed the unforeseeing instant’s urge,
    And, leader here with his uncertain mind,
    Alone who stares at the future’s covered face,
    Man lifted up the burden of his fate. ||1.46||

    And Savitri too awoke among these tribes
    That hastened to join the brilliant Summoner’s chant
    And, lured by the beauty of the apparent ways,
    Acclaimed their portion of ephemeral joy. ||2.1||
    Akin to the eternity whence she came,
    No part she took in this small happiness;
    A mighty stranger in the human field,
    The embodied Guest within made no response. ||2.2||
    The call that wakes the leap of human mind,
    Its chequered eager motion of pursuit,
    Its fluttering-hued illusion of desire,
    Visited her heart like a sweet alien note. ||2.3||

    The Divine Goddess, let us call her Abhirūpā, the Unknowable’s power of manifestation, wanted to come here and stay, but she found things were not ready enough. She withdrew, withdrew not with the intention of going away but to come again when the necessary field has been prepared for her stay and for her work. There was only the common light of the day, and only the daily routine acts were being carried out, even as Man lifted up the burden of his thick heavy fate, of a mortal’s destiny, under the sway of incorrigible death.

    It is in that context that Savitri has to come forward do the groundwork. She has been here “since the beginning of the earth”, since the presence of the Supreme in the deep Inconscience, he as Mārtāṇda, in the story of Savitri as Satyavān.

    But now Man lifting up the burden of his Fate she awakes, “Savitri too awoke”, she awakes, she awakes, she is not born at this time but she awakes at this time. What a powerfully charged or loaded this verb “awoke” is! “awoke” and not “was born”! Such poetry can be more precise and mathematical than mathematics.

    But when could have been this awakening? Man in the Manomaya World is ready and things here are ready for him to step in, the Involutionary Man over there ready to step into unfolding Evolution. The scripture speaks of him as “well-made”, well-made for the gods to dwell in, “O well fashioned truly! Man indeed is well and beautifully made.” This is at the time of the Avatarhood of Rāma with whom begins the race of the mental beings. Sitā was found in the furrows of the ploughed field, which itself is significant.

    Savitri, eternally present on earth since its formation, has now to take hold of the reins in her conquering hands and prepare the material ground for the new race. This well fashioned man of the Aitereya Upanishad is not sufficient, is not sufficiently well-made, and there must arrive one with a divine body for a divine life. That is her occult-yogic work. She now awakes to do it.

    1. Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri Mantra: “Let us meditate upon the most auspicious form of Savitri, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth”.

      1. Indeed. It shall illumine us with the Truth — if we do that intense Yoga-Yajña.

        By the way, “Savitri” here in this Mantra is not King Aswapati’s radiant daughter “Sāvitrī”, सावित्री, of the Mahābhārata story, a female, a word that etymologically in Sanskrit means the daughter of the Sun-God. King Aswapati worshipped Goddess Sāvitrī for eighteen years. The Mantra, both this and the original by Vishwamitra in the Rig Veda, refers to the Sun-God, the supramental Sun.

        Here is Vishwamitra’s traditional Gayatri Mantra:
        तत्स॑वि॒तुर्वरे॑ण्यं॒ भर्गो॑ दे॒वस्य॑ धीमहि ।
        धियो॒ यो नः॑ प्रचो॒दया॑त् ॥ ३.०६२.१०

        The Sun-God in Sanskrit is Savitru or, correctly, Savitṛ. The meditation is on the most auspicious form of the Sun-God, Savitṛ.

        Gāyatri Mantra is a verse with 24 syllables, divided in two parts, 16 and 8.

        In Sri Aurobindo’s “Savitri” we have the boon received by Aswapati with 24 lines exactly, each syllable corresponding to a line of it:

        O strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry. ||91.3||
        One shall descend and break the iron Law,
        Change Nature’s doom by the lone Spirit’s power. ||91.4||
        A limitless Mind that can contain the world,
        A sweet and violent heart of ardent calms
        Moved by the passions of the gods shall come. ||91.5||
        All mights and greatnesses shall join in her;
        Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth,
        Delight shall sleep in the cloud-net of her hair
        And in her body as on his homing tree
        Immortal Love shall beat his glorious wings. ||91.6||
        A music of griefless things shall weave her charm;
        The harps of the Perfect shall attune her voice,
        The streams of Heaven shall murmur in her laugh,
        Her lips shall be the honeycombs of God,
        Her limbs his golden jars of ecstasy,
        Her breasts the rapture-flowers of Paradise. ||91.7||
        She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom,
        Strength shall be with her like a conqueror’s sword
        And from her eyes the Eternal’s bliss shall gaze. ||91.8||
        A seed shall be sown in Death’s tremendous hour,
        A branch of heaven transplant to human soil;
        Nature shall overleap her mortal step;
        Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will. ||91.9||

        The emphasis is on the “auspicious form”.

        This Gayatri with “24” expands into the full epic of 24,000 lines.

  34. Respected Deshpande-Ji,
    Thanks for this explanation of the difference between Sāvitrī and Savitṛ. When I listen to the sacred mantra, the female singer first read the original version in Sanskrit and then she translate it in English and finally, in an Indian language that I guess might be Hindi. It is this English version that I used (from memory) to write my comment of above but it is clear from the Sanskrit version that the mantra talks of Savitṛ. Still, the distinction is important between Savitṛ and her radiant daughter Sāvitrī even though both represent the Supramental Light (maybe Savitṛ is the aspect of Being, “Sat”, of the Supramental, and Sāvitrī is the aspect “Chit-Tapas”?). Moreover, your observations and precisions about the “24” are delightful.

    1. Not “her radiant daughter”; it is “his radiant daughter”. It is Sun-God. in Sanskrit Masculine ṛ-stem declension of सवितृ (savitṛ́). Sri Aurobindo calls “Supermind” as the “Creator”; this inherently has in it the presence of his Power which in a patriarchal language and thinking like Sanskrit could become Spouse or Daughter. Vyasa calls the Creator as Pitāmaha, Grand Sire whose daughter is what we call as Savitri.
      What is the deepest relationship between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? It is of the Supreme and his Executrix.

      This is from Wikionary:
      Singular Dual Plural
      Nominative सविता savitā́
      सवितारौ / सवितारा¹
      savitā́rau / savitā́rā¹
      सवितारः savitā́raḥ
      Vocative सवितः sávitaḥ
      सवितारौ / सवितारा¹ sávitārau / sávitārā¹
      सवितारः sávitāraḥ
      Accusative सवितारम् savitā́ram
      सवितारौ / सवितारा¹
      savitā́rau / savitā́rā¹
      सवितॄन् savitṝ́n
      Instrumental सवित्रा savitrā́
      सवितृभ्याम् savitṛ́bhyām
      सवितृभिः savitṛ́bhiḥ
      Dative सवित्रे savitré
      सवितृभ्याम् savitṛ́bhyām
      सवितृभ्यः savitṛ́bhyaḥ
      Ablative सवितुः savitúḥ
      सवितृभ्याम् savitṛ́bhyām
      सवितृभ्यःnsavitṛ́bhyaḥ
      Genitive सवितुः savitúḥ
      सवित्रोः savitróḥ
      सवितॄणाम् savitṝṇā́m
      Locative सवितरि savitári
      सवित्रोः savitróḥ
      सवितृषु savitṛ́ṣu
      https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%83#Sanskrit
      ***
      By the way, the Gayatri the Mother gave was on 15 December 1911. The phrases are as we have in Vishwamitra and Sri Aurobindo whom she had not yet met. It, this Mantra, is inborn for her.

  35. Here is the Mother’s Gayatri Mantra:

    “I would like us to make the resolution to raise ourselves each day, in all sincerity and goodwill, in an ardent aspiration towards the Sun of Truth, towards the Supreme Light, the source and intellectual life of the universe, so that it may pervade us entirely and illumine with its great brilliance our minds and hearts, all our thoughts and our actions.” [CWM, Vol. 2, p. 29]

    This was in a talk given by her on 15 December 1911, in Paris, long before she met Sri Aurobindo, first in 1914. “The Sun of Truth”, “Supreme Light”, “illumine with tis great brilliance” — these phrases belong to the class of Vedic and Aurobindonian terminology. She already had that realisation, at 33, of her own.

    1. Clearly the spirit and power of the Gayatri. One can feel the fire of the divine rallying cry inducing a strong aspiration for all human beings. If it was a talk given in Paris, it was probably originally in French. Can you (or Anurag) trace the precise formulation in French and give it to us here? For all french speaking people here to get the benefit of the PRECISE formulation of the prayer given by Mother in French?

      1. Je voudrais que nous prenions la résolution de nous élever quotidiennement, en toute sincérité et bonne volonté, dans une ardente aspiration vers le Soleil de Vérité, vers la Lumière Suprême, source et vie intellectuelle de l’univers, afin qu’elle nous pénètre toute et illumine de sa grande clarté notre cerveau et notre cœur, toutes nos pensées et tous nos actes.

        For the fuller talk in French please go to the following:

        De la pensée
        https://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/on-thought/french

        1. That fuller talk on the incarnate word-link is as rich and revealing. I would like to copy and paste the last part, in English:

          And now allow me, before concluding, to express a wish.

          I would like us to make the resolution to raise ourselves each day, in all sincerity and goodwill, in an ardent aspiration towards the Sun of Truth, towards the Supreme Light, the source and intellectual life of the universe, so that it may pervade us entirely and illumine with its great brilliance our minds and hearts, all our thoughts and our actions.

          Then we shall acquire the right and the privilege of following the counsel of the great initiate of the past, who tells us:

          “With your hearts overflowing with compassion, go forth into this world torn by pain, be instructors, and wherever the darkness of ignorance rules, there light a torch.”
          15 December 1911
          ***

          Appendix
          These notes, found among the Mother’s manuscripts, seem to relate to the typal meditation described on pp. 27-28.

          LOVE: For the Being, because he is the Being independent of all contingencies and individuals.
          PITY: One no longer feels suffering for oneself, but only for others.
          SYMPATHY: To suffer with the world, to share suffering (to suffer with).
          SERENITY: Perfect knowledge of the state in which all suffering disappears (individual experience).
          ***
          LOVE: For the being in his entirety without distinction of good or evil, light or darkness.
          PITY: For all weakness and all bad will.
          SYMPATHY: Towards effort, encouragement, collaboration.
          SERENITY: Hope in the ending of suffering (knowing one’s individual experience, one logically infers that it can be generalised and become the experience of all).
          ***
          LOVE: Without distinction of past, present or future.
          PITY: For the life of pain.
          SYMPATHY: Understanding of everything, even of evil.
          SERENITY: Certitude of the final victory.
          ***
          Three active attitudes, one passive attitude; three external relationships with the all, one inner relationship. A state to be maintained throughout the whole meditation: Serenity in love, sympathy and pity.
          __

          “With your hearts overflowing with compassion, go forth into this world torn by pain, be instructors, and wherever the darkness of ignorance rules, there light a torch.”

  36. Extending this Gayatri theme, let us hear the post-Vedic sounds of non-wisdom:

    “When not understood, it is far away,” — so the Vedas have remained far away from us because they have not been understood. There have been interpretations galore. Reputable people have considered them to be the works of a primitive race, of Nature-worshippers, the followers of some old crude tribal religion; at the best they have been credited to be high-poetic hymns, with the qualification that those are the songs of noisy birds, fortissimo of rustics. Rishi Vishwamitra was a farmer and ploughed his fields using obstinate bulls; all his concern was to urge and drive them to work with loud chants. Such is the physical mind’s absurd interpretation. The extent to which pseudo-rationalism can go is best seen in the rendering of the famous Gayatri Mantra of Vishwamitra:

    तत्स॑वि॒तुर्वरे॑ण्यं॒ भर्गो॑ दे॒वस्य॑ धीमहि ।
    धियो॒ यो नः॑ प्रचो॒दया॑त् ॥ ३.०६२.१०

    SV Ganapati translates it as follows: “That Savita of excellent vigour, whose effulgence is great with ideas (conceptions) for us, satisfies us from the source and also nourishes us above with the course of life.” Even Griffith does much better than this: “May we attain that excellent glory of Savitar the God: So may he stimulate our prayers.” W Jones’s paraphrastic translation is certainly far more satisfying than both these: “Let us adore the supremacy of that divine sun, the godhead, who illuminates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understanding aright in our progress towards his holy seat.”

    There is a fashion current today to speak in a scientific vein about everything and everywhere; but more often than not misplaced notions of conscious reasoning are introduced even while reading the Vedas, as if they were going to acquire extra prestige and hence acceptability by the present generation brought up in this milieu of overbearing science and technology. When people say that “brain-cells like the stars in the sky are referred to as Visvadevas,” or “perhaps the radioactivity of some of the higher elements of matter is an effort at breaking free from this repressed state presaging life-activity to follow with the cooperation of matter,” or “light behaving both as a wave and a particle is accounted for by this basic principle of its genesis,” the principle of ideas getting densely packed to form matter, it is a travesty of both science and spirituality.

    We see similar things already happening with Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine which is said to explain the quantum field theory of modern physics; parallelisms are absurd and futile. The experience of Shiva’s dance and the whirling of electrons in an atom belong to different categories of reality and, although there are multiple projections of one on the other, they cannot be brought down in an equation to the same level. This is just one more dimension added to the traditional naturalistic, ritualistic, theological, linguistic, psychological, philosophical interpretations of the revealed texts and, as there are so many traditional interpretations, none of them can be the whole truth; even the degrees of truth are varying.

    Fortunately Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have given us the truth-sense and truth-contents in truth-rhythms those marvellous ancient revelations.

  37. Let us smile in the Smile that will change the whole world
    Sourions du Sourire qui changera le monde
    समग्रं जगत् परिवर्तयिष्यमाणे स्मिते स्मितं कुर्मः|
    Sorridiamo nel Sorriso che cambierà il mondo intero

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