Savitri Study Class with Alok Pandey, Book 7 Canto 1
The enigma of Fate is perhaps the deepest of all puzzles, perhaps even greater than the mystery of life and death. We cover our ignorance by words such as karma, chance, accident etc but these words leave us equally baffled as to what weaves the warp and woof of fate. In these few lines that follow Sri Aurobindo summarises Fate beautifully. He also answers the question whether man is a slave or master of his fate? Well, it depends upon our actual state of development. Fate is a challenge that our soul has accepted to bring out its hidden powers. As long as the full soul power is not yet developed we remain subject to Fate. But once the soul has awakened and discovered its hidden glories, then Fate can be mastered.
Fate followed her foreseen immutable road.
Man’s hopes and longings build the journeying wheels
That bear the body of his destiny
And lead his blind will towards an unknown goal.
His fate within him shapes his acts and rules;
Its face and form already are born in him,
Its parentage is in his secret soul:
Here Matter seems to mould the body’s life
And the soul follows where its nature drives.
Nature and Fate compel his free-will’s choice.
But greater spirits this balance can reverse
And make the soul the artist of its fate.
This is the mystic truth our ignorance hides:
Doom is a passage for our inborn force,
Our ordeal is the hidden spirit’s choice,
Ananke is our being’s own decree.[Savitri: 465]
