And a great calm had fallen. The wish to lessen
His suffering, the impulse that opposes pain
Were the one mortal feeling left. It passed:
Griefless and strong she waited like the gods.”
And, In the beginning of the canto we see whole past moments she lived with Satyavan gone before her.
“By her still sleeping husband lain she gazed
Into her past as one about to die
Looks back upon the sunlit fields of life
Where he too ran and sported with the rest,
Lifting his head above the huge dark stream
Into whose depths he must for ever plunge.
All she had been and done she lived again.
The whole year in a swift and eddying race
Of memories swept through her and fled away
Into the irrecoverable past.
By reading these lines it seems there is some uncertainty about the future. It also makes you understand why there is a grief still “fear” part I am unable to understand. But I would love to understand through your intuitive sight that what Savitri is experiencing here?
What kind of fear is this? Why is there grief? But isn’t Savitri certain that she will bring Satyavan back from the clutch of death?
There is no fear for herself but grief at the fate of human beings who suffer at the hands of death quite mercilessly. It is a psychic sorrow born out of sympathy and compassion.
The grief of Savitri as described particularly in Book Eight (Canto Three) is a remarkable description of the Divine becoming human. It holds in itself the mystery of the Avatar. Unlike yogis who rise above the Law, the Avatar comes to change the Law. Hence he descends and subjects himself consciously to the forces of ignorance so that He / She can work upon them as well through them. Thus he / she can open the way for other human beings.
That is the secret of the Avatar, the Divine becoming human so that man can become Divine.
Sri Aurobindo describes this poignantly in another passage in the course of the Yoga of Savitri.
‘Thou hast come down into a struggling world
To aid a blind and suffering mortal race,
To open to Light the eyes that could not see,
To bring down bliss into the heart of grief,
To make thy life a bridge twixt earth and heaven;
If thou wouldst save the toiling universe,
The vast universal suffering feel as thine:
Thou must bear the sorrow that thou claimst to heal;
The day-bringer must walk in darkest night.
He who would save the world must share its pain.
If he knows not grief, how shall he find grief’s cure?
If far he walks above mortality’s head,
How shall the mortal reach that too high path?
If one of theirs they see scale heaven’s peaks,
Men then can hope to learn that titan climb.
God must be born on earth and be as man
That man being human may grow even as God.
He who would save the world must be one with the world,
All suffering things contain in his heart’s space
And bear the grief and joy of all that lives.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
