Re: 18: The Wonderful Boon RY Deshpande Sun 12 Aug 2007 07:34 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link The most auspicious form of Savitŗ, the Light of the Supreme
tat savitur varam rūpam jyotih parasya dhīmahi. yannah satyéna dīpayét.
Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitŗ, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth. This is Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri Mantra. The meditation is on the auspicious form Savitŗ, of the Sun-God, on varam rūpam, on the Sun of divine Light, the Light of the Supreme, parasya jyotih. The Mantra affirms that the Light shall illumine us with the Truth. It shall illumine all the parts of our being, even the very physical. In it shall be our true progress, our authentic progress. The threefold reality of Sat-Chit-Ananda shall express itself in this creation. Even the physical shall reveal the dynamic reality on which it is founded; it shall participate in its gleaming modalities, in its modes and means and methods, lend itself to the manifesting Truth and the Right and the Vast, satyam-ŗtam-bŗhat. The operative phrases in the Mantra are the auspicious form, varam rūpam, and the supreme Light, parasya jyotih, the best, excellent, beautiful, precious, choicest, finest, royal, princely form, full of nobility and elegance and charm, full of benevolence and graciousness, varam rūpam, and the supreme Light that never dims, that never casts shadow, the transcendental Light, parasya jyotih, the Light from which all lights come, the Sun in which, from which are born all the million suns. The implication of the Mantra is that of physical transformation achieved by the agency of the supreme Light. The Vedic-Upanishadic Rishis had the knowledge of this supreme Light, Vijnan. They knew that it is the source and the support of the entire creation. But about the manifestation of the dynamic Truth in this mortal world, in mŗtyuloka, they did not have the sure definite working intuition. They did not know the way towards physical transformation. Perhaps at that time it was too early to realise it collectively, here in this death-bound world. Now Sri Aurobindo, by his unique yoga-tapasya, has prepared the required ground. He has made it a reality in the evolutionary manifestation. He has invoked the supreme Grace to incarnate here. She must come here and take up the difficult work in her own hand, take charge of things and events. She alone can bring about that transformative miracle. That creative power should bring truth and light and force and bliss to the mortal world, to this creation presently governed by death. That will be her work, its fulfilment. Savitri is the incarnate power who shall establish divinity in the terrestrial phenomenon. The coming down of that Grace is the birth of Savitri. This is what Aswapati prayed for and this is what the Boon grants. But let us look at the auspicious form, varam rūpam, of the revelatory Gayatri Mantra significantly incorporated in the Boon, the divine Wisdom, sonnet-wise, describing it as follows, those fourteen lines: 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. 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. 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. Whereas the ancient Vedic Mantra was an invocation addressed to the Sun-God, full of excellent heavenly radiance, that he may inspire and urge our right intelligence, we have here in Sri Aurobindo a prayer for the physical opening to the supramental Light and Force. But the physical’s is the task which the incarnate Wisdom must carry out in this world of dark and anguished mortal world. In the power and intensity of that Mantra, of varam rūpam, even as the Mother’s yoga-tapasya progressed in the physical, after the supramental manifestation on 29 February 1956, the body’s cells opened to the Presence and started chanting spontaneously the divine Name, with the prayer O Supreme Lord of the universe, we implore Thee, give us the strength and the beauty, the harmonious perfection needed to be Thy divine instruments upon earth. The Mother saw that the physical is not only capable of receiving the higher Light, but has the certitude that it can manifest the true Consciousness. How marvellous—the Boon coming from the divine Wisdom! Sri Aurobindo explains the significance of the Mantra as follows: Brahman in the Vedas signifies ordinarily the Vedic Word or Mantra in its profoundest aspect as the expression of the intuition arising out of the depths of the soul or being. It is a voice of the rhythm which has created the worlds and creates perpetually. All world is expression or manifestation, creation by the Word…. And the word of creative Power welling upward out of the soul is also brahman. The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras; they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisations for others…. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. The Word, or Brahman the Creator of the Worlds, can thus express itself in us, embody the auspicious strength, varam balam, of the spirit to make progress in its widening manifestation. Savitri which itself is a divine Boon achieves it through the divine Boon given to Aswapati. But in terms of its reality-content, of the mantric Savitri, we might as well say that the Mother had already written it in 1911 itself, when she addressed her prayer to the Sun of Truth. In a talk given to a women’s association, dated 15 December 1911, the Mother expresses a very remarkable wish of hers. She proposes to the members of the association to make a resolution to raise themselves … 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. The Mantra is striking in several respects when we also realise that the Mother received it, indeed, even before she met Sri Aurobindo in 1914. This was in Paris when she was just 33,—showing us that “the Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth.” The ardent invocation to the Supreme Light to “pervade us entirely and illumine us with its great brilliance” is certainly the imploration, as well as the defining assertion, with which both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother started their work even before they came together in Pondicherry, the destined meeting place.
Let us meditate on the most auspicious form of Savitŗ, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth. This is Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri Mantra. The meditation is on the auspicious form Savitŗ, of the Sun-God, on varam rūpam, on the Sun of divine Light, the Light of the Supreme, parasya jyotih. The Mantra affirms that the Light shall illumine us with the Truth. It shall illumine all the parts of our being, even the very physical. In it shall be our true progress, our authentic progress. The threefold reality of Sat-Chit-Ananda shall express itself in this creation. Even the physical shall reveal the dynamic reality on which it is founded; it shall participate in its gleaming modalities, in its modes and means and methods, lend itself to the manifesting Truth and the Right and the Vast, satyam-ŗtam-bŗhat. The operative phrases in the Mantra are the auspicious form, varam rūpam, and the supreme Light, parasya jyotih, the best, excellent, beautiful, precious, choicest, finest, royal, princely form, full of nobility and elegance and charm, full of benevolence and graciousness, varam rūpam, and the supreme Light that never dims, that never casts shadow, the transcendental Light, parasya jyotih, the Light from which all lights come, the Sun in which, from which are born all the million suns. The implication of the Mantra is that of physical transformation achieved by the agency of the supreme Light. The Vedic-Upanishadic Rishis had the knowledge of this supreme Light, Vijnan. They knew that it is the source and the support of the entire creation. But about the manifestation of the dynamic Truth in this mortal world, in mŗtyuloka, they did not have the sure definite working intuition. They did not know the way towards physical transformation. Perhaps at that time it was too early to realise it collectively, here in this death-bound world. Now Sri Aurobindo, by his unique yoga-tapasya, has prepared the required ground. He has made it a reality in the evolutionary manifestation. He has invoked the supreme Grace to incarnate here. She must come here and take up the difficult work in her own hand, take charge of things and events. She alone can bring about that transformative miracle. That creative power should bring truth and light and force and bliss to the mortal world, to this creation presently governed by death. That will be her work, its fulfilment. Savitri is the incarnate power who shall establish divinity in the terrestrial phenomenon. The coming down of that Grace is the birth of Savitri. This is what Aswapati prayed for and this is what the Boon grants. But let us look at the auspicious form, varam rūpam, of the revelatory Gayatri Mantra significantly incorporated in the Boon, the divine Wisdom, sonnet-wise, describing it as follows, those fourteen lines: 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. 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. 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. Whereas the ancient Vedic Mantra was an invocation addressed to the Sun-God, full of excellent heavenly radiance, that he may inspire and urge our right intelligence, we have here in Sri Aurobindo a prayer for the physical opening to the supramental Light and Force. But the physical’s is the task which the incarnate Wisdom must carry out in this world of dark and anguished mortal world. In the power and intensity of that Mantra, of varam rūpam, even as the Mother’s yoga-tapasya progressed in the physical, after the supramental manifestation on 29 February 1956, the body’s cells opened to the Presence and started chanting spontaneously the divine Name, with the prayer O Supreme Lord of the universe, we implore Thee, give us the strength and the beauty, the harmonious perfection needed to be Thy divine instruments upon earth. The Mother saw that the physical is not only capable of receiving the higher Light, but has the certitude that it can manifest the true Consciousness. How marvellous—the Boon coming from the divine Wisdom! Sri Aurobindo explains the significance of the Mantra as follows: Brahman in the Vedas signifies ordinarily the Vedic Word or Mantra in its profoundest aspect as the expression of the intuition arising out of the depths of the soul or being. It is a voice of the rhythm which has created the worlds and creates perpetually. All world is expression or manifestation, creation by the Word…. And the word of creative Power welling upward out of the soul is also brahman. The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras; they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisations for others…. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written can light this fire within, open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. The Word, or Brahman the Creator of the Worlds, can thus express itself in us, embody the auspicious strength, varam balam, of the spirit to make progress in its widening manifestation. Savitri which itself is a divine Boon achieves it through the divine Boon given to Aswapati. But in terms of its reality-content, of the mantric Savitri, we might as well say that the Mother had already written it in 1911 itself, when she addressed her prayer to the Sun of Truth. In a talk given to a women’s association, dated 15 December 1911, the Mother expresses a very remarkable wish of hers. She proposes to the members of the association to make a resolution to raise themselves … 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. The Mantra is striking in several respects when we also realise that the Mother received it, indeed, even before she met Sri Aurobindo in 1914. This was in Paris when she was just 33,—showing us that “the Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth.” The ardent invocation to the Supreme Light to “pervade us entirely and illumine us with its great brilliance” is certainly the imploration, as well as the defining assertion, with which both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother started their work even before they came together in Pondicherry, the destined meeting place.
No comments:
Post a Comment