The Winds of Wonder

पूषन्नेकर्षे यम सूर्य प्राजापत्य व्यूह रश्मीन् समूह ।

तेजो यत् ते रुपं कल्याणतमं तत्ते पश्यामि योऽसावसौ पुरुषः सोऽहमस्मि ॥१६॥

16) O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer, O illumining Sun, O power of the Father of creatures, marshal thy rays, draw together thy light; the Lustre which is thy most blessed form of all, that in Thee I behold. The Purusha there and there, He am I.

“The face of the Truth is covered with a golden lid: O fostering Sun, that uncover for the law of the truth, for sight. O fosterer, O sole Rishi, O controlling Yama, O Surya, O son of the Father of creatures, marshal and mass thy rays: the Lustre that is thy most blessed form of all, that I see, He who is this, this Purusha, He am I.”

“The experience of the great expanse of golden light on a mountain-top came because I had asked X to aspire for the higher experiences of the consciousness from above. The symbolic image of the mountain with the light on its top comes to most sadhaks who have the power of vision at all. The mountain is the consciousness rising from earth (the physical) through the successive heights (vital, mental, above-mental) towards the spiritual heaven. The golden light is always the light of the higher Truth (Supermind, Overmind or a little lower down the pure Intuition) and it is represented as a great luminous expanse on the summits of the being. X by concentrating on the light entered into contact with the higher reaches and that always gives these results, peace, joy, strength, a consciousness secure in the power of the Divine. It is of course through the psychic that she got into this contact, but in itself it is more an experience of the higher spiritual consciousness above mind than a psychic experience.”

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga

And here is Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri:

तत्सवितुर्वरं रूपं ज्योतिः परस्य धीमहि ।

यन्नः सत्येन दीपयेत् ।।

Let us meditate on the most auspicious (best) form of Savitri, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth.

19 March 1933

For a fuller perspective please refer to the following:

If in the Upanishadic verse we have “thy most blessed form of all”, of “illumining Sun”, rūpaṃ kalyānatamaṃ, रुपं कल्याणतमं, in Sri Aurobindo’s own Gayatri it is “the most auspicious (best) form of Savitri”, varaṃ rūpaṃ, वरं रूपं. Are these two the same? Although the two phrases are more or less identical in their sense, yet there is a world of difference between them. It is the Light of the Supreme, परस्य ज्योति, much different than “Lustre”, तेज, that which is seen by the Rishi, seen and not that which shall illumine. This dynamism is for the divine manifestation moving towards this earthly life becoming the life divine.