Publisher's Synopsis
Sri Aurobindo's epic Savitri opens with the Symbol Dawn and immediately in the first two sentences poses the problem of this creation. It says that the Gods are not yet awake and that the mind of Night is standing in the way of the divine Event. The divine Event is the manifestation of a new creation upon earth, manifestation in the mortal world. If that is to happen then the mind of Night should be first dislodged from the path. It is only then that the transforming Gods will set themselves into action. The Event will proceed not with the waking of the Gods but with the removal of the mind of Night. That is crucial, significant. But what is this mind of Night? It is the physical's mind receiving and holding in it the charge of the inconscient Darkness; she receives her and shapes her ideas and objects. All this happens before the Gods awake-It was the hour before the Gods awake. Obviously in the presence of the mind of Night no transforming Gods will awake, will act. However, in this inscrutable Night's darkness there is something that wishes to know but knows not how to be. There is the urge straining to look for absent light. In response to it a message arrives from other side of the luminous boundlessness. It calls the adventure of consciousness and joy. A thought is sown, memory quivers. Hope is kindled. Indeed if the god-touch is there then what is it that cannot be done? There is the glory of the unseen sun, and the celestial vision moves in the wake of the dawn. The sky is lit with magnificent hues; in that early hour are planted crimson seeds of grandeur. The things which were promised long ago are going to get fulfilled. But, sadly, the bright omniscient Goddess who wished to come and stay could not. She would have been here and done what was to be done, but she found herself unwelcome. She was not wanted. Naturally she preferred to withdraw from the mortal range. She went back and what remained instead was only the light of the common earthly day. It is under these circumstances arrives in this world Savitri. She received the summons from the Sun-God and steps into the common day, accepts the common lot. That is the mortal birth of divine Savitri. She accepted mortality's lot, its anguish in all its deep measures. Yet ever she was divinely noble and true even in her humanity. Not the diktat of Time but the will of the Supreme that was all she obeyed. She entered into mortality yet she was divinely immortal in her humanity. Calm luminous delight had always been the dynamism of her nature. It is in it she found oneness with all. Oneness with all-that is the key to the flaming doors of ecstasy. Savitri was in possession of it. She has that necessary key but that key alone is not sufficient for the flaming doors of ecstasy. There is the inconscient stubbornness of earth-nature also, and it needs be tackled. The difficulty is, it is hard to persuade earth-nature's change. As long as earth-nature remains a product of Inconscience the key cannot work. Earth-nature cannot bear the assault of ether and of fire, the storming of the blueness of the vast and the fieriness of the orange luminous-they are too overpowering for it though the soul may be ready. In order to change this earth-nature it is necessary to go to the root of things, it springing from the inconscient brood. There is Ignorance, there is Death, there is Falsehood. At the material level these show up themselves as the mind of Night. It is this mind which needs to be transformed, made the mind of Light to receive the supramental Light and Force. When the physical receives this Light then can proceed the divine manifestation. But as long as the mind of Night casts her thick shadow on the divine Love, as long as he is in the grip of Death this cannot happen, will not happen. But when that Death's grip is removed then can function the transforming Gods.
