Q: Can we read Savitri to get liberation from birth-death cycle or to attain Moksha, or is it exclusively for those who practice integral yoga and want transformation? Can we learn Savitri? Will it help ordinary seekers to realise self or is it too high for such persons?
ALOKDA: Everything is there in Savitri. It is not a book but a power. It is a living body of Truth, not a limited one-sided formula of Truth but the infinite Truth crammed in a book carrying the power to uplift us from peak to peak, summit to summits of glory and wisdom and power and bliss. It is a mantra of transformation and can there be any true transformation as long as our consciousness remains bound to the ignorance. Liberation is on the way to transformation. However the difference is that in this yoga it does not come in the traditional way by cutting oneself off from nature while leaving this field untouched. In this yoga the liberation comes by a progressive growth of consciousness, by discovering the secret psychic being within us and uniting with it, by an opening to the higher planes of consciousness through which one can glimpse the true Self. Savitri helps us to arrive at all these divine possibilities by helping the consciousness to grow by its contact. It is the living body of the dual consciousness of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as one.
As to high and low it again depends on what we mean by it and what is our aspiration and demand from life. Nothing precious comes easily. So should one settle for the low because the price is high for that which is truly precious? Should not one rather strive in such a way as to reach the heights and pay the price needed for scaling the summits? Besides can man truly be happy for long with a low and fallen state? I do not think so. his very erect posture signified that he is destined climb high and move towards the future where his eyes are set to gaze. We are meant for those summits since we have come here from That, in fact we are That. All this Savitri not only reveals to us in unparalleled rhythms of beauty and light but also radiates from within its words the power that would change us towards the vision of the future that it embodies. It is thus not only a vision but also an action, not just wisdom but also the power to execute the wisdom contained within it. But most of all it is delight. To read Savitri is to be immersed in delight, the delight that has built the worlds, the all creative Ananda of the Divine.
Of course any one can read it but the degree of what one would receive will depend upon the individual receptivity and opening towards the truths it contains. This is true of everything. Even if the Divine is right in front of us we receive only according to what we really seek and aspire with sincerity. How the asuras practicing severe austerities end up only with an aggrandised ego whereas a child (Prahlad) born in a daitya kula yet endowed with a simple faith and devotion realises what is rare even for great yogis and tapaswis. So while Savitri is indeed a tremendous help, the most important of Sri Aurobindo’s as per his own saying and the Mother’s, in fact the whole of it is laden with the rhythm and force of the transforming power, yet we must be in a certain state of receptivity to progress through it. No doubt even if we read it mere mechanically yet the progress will take place but it is not the same thing as when we do so consciously and with a sincere aspiration to remould our present animal-human existence into the divine superhumanity of the future.
