I have heard you speak of how people feel joy when they read Savitri. But for me, the experience is different. What I feel is an immense sense of distance — a deep, aching chasm between our manifested world and the Divine Beauty that radiates from every verse. I sense that separation vividly, almost as if a vast cosmic space stretches between this earthly existence and the Divine.
And yet, at times I do feel the Mother’s presence very close — tangibly so — and even catch the fragrance of delicate flowers around me. But reading Savitri brings floods of tears. What is this, Alok da? Is it my unpurified nature reacting to the touch of such celestial perfection?
I long deeply to feel joy in reading Savitri. I believe it is the greatest book ever written. It is truly my most beloved reading. And still, it brings me to tears.
Please, could you help me understand — why does this happen?
These are psychic tears of longing and joy at the recognition of one’s true home, the spiritual home described beautifully in Savitri itself.
‘As if a beckoning finger of secrecy
Outstretched into a crystal mood of air,
Pointing at him from some near hidden depth,
As if a message from the world’s deep soul,
An intimation of a lurking joy
That flowed out from a cup of brooding bliss,
There shimmered stealing out into the Mind
A mute and quivering ecstasy of light,
A passion and delicacy of roseate fire.
As one drawn to his lost spiritual home
Feels now the closeness of a waiting love,
Into a passage dim and tremulous
That clasped him in from day and night’s pursuit,
He travelled led by a mysterious sound.
A murmur multitudinous and lone,
All sounds it was in turn, yet still the same.
A hidden call to unforeseen delight
In the summoning voice of one long-known, well-loved,
But nameless to the unremembering mind,
It led to rapture back the truant heart.
The immortal cry ravished the captive ear.
Then, lowering its imperious mystery,
It sank to a whisper circling round the soul.
It seemed the yearning of a lonely flute
That roamed along the shores of memory
And filled the eyes with tears of longing joy.’
There is a simultaneous recognition of the Soul of where it truly belongs as well as the present world conditions in which it is presently caught. But the Mother is there, rather here, to bridge the distance and take us to our true divine home. The fragrance of flowers, the sense of Her Presence is the sign that She is near you and your soul knows it well. It is also the assurance of your higher spiritual destiny building itself behind the framework of outer life.
It is a beautiful sign, a psychic state in which you enter while reading Savitri, not of any impurity which is there is everybody. Rather it is a promise that whatever be the impurities of nature they cannot stand in the way of your higher spiritual destiny whose doors She has opened for you through Savitri.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
