The Winds of Wonder

Canto Twenty-Four

Even as Aswapati pleaded Savitri


With many-leaping flames in radiant sky,


Rained resplendent waters over his tapas.

Longings of earth excelled in their rapid flow

And auspicious hour validated the world.


True, the gods enter not this den of night,


And the dark-hued sphinx slays the soul of man,

And time is haunted by the ghost of death;


But if life is to see the topaz wonder


And joy, future’s builders born in these bounds,

She must take mortal birth and alter fate.


New eternity gave the word: “Be it so.”

16 May 2002

Be it so — tathāstu, तथास्तु.

Savitri:

In the story by Vyāsa as we have in the Mahābhārata Aswapati the issueless King makes daily, for eighteen years, a hundred thousand fire-offerings to Goddess Savitri. The boon is her own birth as his daughter.

III: 4 The Vision and the Boon

There is a sudden flow of flaming energy and Aswapati feels its rush into all parts of his being, down to the very physical. Spirit and body identify with each other, even as the radiant Goddess on the threshold Mind stands in front of him. She counsels him not to force mortality’s issue, that which could be counter-productive, disastrous, if things are not ready; he should instead leave all to the course of the evolving Time, to its operative wisdom. He is told that Man is too weak to bear the burden of the Truth, and he must graduate himself to receive her gifts. In the meanwhile, Aswapati should help this struggling creature on his heavenward march. She is poised to grant a boon to Aswapati, with the assurance and inevitability that all things shall happen in God’s transfiguring hour. But the Siddha Yogi makes himself bold and defies her; he holds out an alternative. He is not ready to accept her wise advice. Though hers is a part of divine sagacity, there could be yet another will in the divine working of the multiplicity of truth-wills. He knows that a new creation in the House of the Spirit is ready and is waiting to be born. For it to happen his proposal is the Goddess should incarnate herself, to make it real here. Saying ‘Be it so’ the Goddess withdraws, and glad Aswapati returns to attend to his worldly duties.

[Book Three Canto Four: The Vision and the Boon]

Savitri Book 3 Canto 4 – The Vision and the Boon

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||

The featured image is a painting by Huta. The following is a sketch drawn by the Mother.

An Influence had approached the mortal range,
A boundless Heart was near his longing heart,
A mystic Form enveloped his earthly shape. ||89.3||

The Mother with her son André