Opening Remarks for Book Six

The Book of Fate can be considered as the turning point of the epic. Interposed in the middle of the epic, the Book is interestingly balanced between the Book of Love and the Book of Yoga forming almost a trilogy of Love, Fate and Yoga. It takes up the question as to why even the most beautiful things, including love that is so beautifully woven in creation must eventually fail. Love, in fact is the power that has woven this creation into a beautiful, harmonious interconnectedness. Without love this world would go into utter chaos. If Love alone were this world would blossom harmoniously into its divine destiny. But there is something that is constantly pulling creation backwards and downwards towards the primal chaos out of which it is emerging. It is this tendency for everything to be pulled down and end badly is what love struggles with.

So far the labour of love has pulled matter out of its inertia and subatomic chaos into a beautiful material universe and upon earth, a progressive evolution of dust to man. In man however the force of Love now seeks to find its highest Divine expression. If that happens and as more and more human beings open to the power of Divine Love in them the more they will escape the law of death and the anomalies of fate. Savitri embodies this highest Divine Love but she too must confront the law of death and fate. As an embodiment of the Divine Mother her struggle therefore becomes symbolic of the struggle of all humanity. She takes upon herself the burden of the race.

Meanwhile Narad, the heavenly sage who arrives at Aswapati’s palace just around the moment when Savitri returns from her quest prophesies that Satyavan, though a marvel among men, has a life cut short abruptly by the ways of fate. He has only one more year to live. Savitri’s mother, the queen, alarmed at this prophesy bids Savitri to change her choice. But Savitri firm as the mountains where she is born, remains steadfast with her choice born out of her heart’s love. It is this that becomes the trigger for the question that the queen asks about Fate and Narad answers in great detail. Of course as we know it is Sri Aurobindo answering these questions for us since the original epic does not deal with these issues in any detail.

The Book of Fate therefore becomes a most enlightening book revealing to us the ways of fate, the problem of pain, the secret truth behind adversity and the way for man to face and eventually conquer it.