The next post of Savitri we shall discuss is as follows:

A glory of lightnings traversing the earth-scene,

Their sun-thoughts fading, darkened by ignorant minds,
Their work betrayed, their good to evil turned,
The cross their payment for the crown they gave,
Only they leave behind a splendid Name.
A fire has come and touched men's hearts and gone;
A few have caught flame and risen to greater life.
Too unlike the world she came to help and save,
Her greatness weighed upon its ignorant breast
And from its dim chasms welled a dire return,
A portion of its sorrow, struggle, fall.
To live with grief, to confront death on her road,--
The mortal's lot became the Immortal's share.

MEANINGS OF SOME DIFFICULT WORDS

Chasm = A deep opening or crack on the earth's surface, or on a rock.

Dire = Awful, Dreadful, or disastrous in consequences; boding ill.

In the last post we discussed how our human nature or earth-nature meets the sons of God, the
messengers of the Supreme, the saviors, with death and pain, that is it reacts in a negative way o
behaves opposite to Divine Nature. Sri Aurobindo continues to explain the results of the same
now in next few lines.

A glory of lightnings traversing the earth-scene,

“the earth scene” is often traversed by “A glory of lightnings”. The messengers of the Supreme,
the sons of Gods are here referred to as the “lightnings” by Sri Aurobindo. Every thought of
theirs, every message they give to us is like a ray of light, bright and luminous. But why Sri
Aurobindo says they are like lightening but not light? Let us see:

Their sun-thoughts fading, darkened by ignorant minds,

In their true virtue, the thoughts of these messengers are like rays of sun, full of eternal light. But
when they traverse in our material world, they have an effect like lightening. When lightening
strikes in night, for a moment it illuminates our nature almost like day light. But is –something
like – absorbed by night. Similarly, the messages of the saviors, which are like lightening,
fadeout due to reluctance of ignorant minds.

Their work betrayed, their good to evil turned,

Not only our ignorant minds makes us to be reluctant about the message spread by the Great
men, it even makes us think that the works of these Great men are betrayal of something and the
good they have done to mankind or they intend to do for us is termed as evil. We can see many
of such examples now days. Some people in the media and in our society who call themselves as
“Buddhi Jeevis”, have developed a habit of “exposing” the sacred organizations and people.
They can go down to any level to achieve the same.
The cross their payment for the crown they gave,

The saviors who descend as the Grace of Supreme, they us a “crown”. Here “crown” carries a
lot of significance. You can take it as Consciousness, Grace, Love, Delight from Supreme, which
acts as a protection to us and leads us higher and higher towards Him. But in return, what they
get in return? “The Cross”. This is a reference to Jesus Christ’s crucification. Cross also means
negation or negligence. What we give them is negligence in return to what they have brought for
us.

Only they leave behind a splendid Name.

Therefore, when earth-nature meets the sons of Gods with death, what remains is their great
Name. Sri M P Pandit concludes this paragraph saying that “Man succeeds in pulling down
everything” in his “The Book of Beginnings”.

A fire has come and touched men's hearts and gone;

A few have caught flame and risen to greater life.

Sri Aurobindo gives the net results of the discussion so far about human nature and its reaction to
divine, in these lines. The Grace of The Supreme, when it descends from above it is like a “fire”
that completely reduces our material nature to ashes and ignites a flame of aspiration in our
hearts. And after that the fire retires. You use the match stick to light the candle, once the candle
is lit; you no longer need the match stick! And also remember from our previous discussions
“Only a little the god-light can stay”. Then it is our Sadhana to maintain the fire of that
aspiration, and reject all that which tends us to move away from the path and a total and integral
surrender, which leads us to a “greater life”, where one stays eternally in static oneness with the
Supreme One, and gets unchained from the binding of the death. But such are very few who are
capable of catching this fire. And very few who sustains it.

Too unlike the world she came to help and save,

Savitri has descended in this material world to “help and save” this world. But she is “too unlike
the world”, that is Her nature is Greater than the nature of human minds or earth nature.

Her greatness weighed upon its ignorant breast

And from its dim chasms welled a dire return,
A portion of its sorrow, struggle, fall.

Our ignorant minds and ignorant world can sustain the Greatness of The Divine Mother, Savitri,
in their natural states. And Sri Aurobindo compares the same to a physical or natural process.
Whenever certain greater force acts on a brittle material like a rock, it gets cracked and anything
hidden behind, may be water or some gas it shoots out. Our world is very brittle. Please
remember from our previous discussions:

A vaster Nature's joy had once been hers,

But long could keep not its gold heavenly hue
Or stand upon this brittle earthly base.

Therefore, this brittle world is like crust of our “sorrows, struggles and fall”. When the Greatness
of the Divine Mother is compelled on our world, it gets cracked to its deep and our sorrows,
miseries, struggles well out and The Divine Mother accepts them to relieve us from them and
gives us the Love and Protection and makes us strong and strong to receive Her Greater Self. But
this happens provided the conditions of The Mother are satisfied and we already know what
these conditions are.

Therefore, Savitri, The Divine Mother, descends to relieve us from all our struggles, miseries,
and falls. But we need to be conscious about it. Until then, The Mother veils Her Greatness, she
remains in the unknown form, within us.

Similarly Savitri too was forced:

To live with grief, to confront death on her road,--

The mortal's lot became the Immortal's share.

“To live with grief, to confront death” are inevitable to “The mortal’s lot” that is they are our
parts, but not the Divine Mother’s. Grief is something natural to us and so is the battle with the
death. but The Divine Mother is from the world of the Supreme, the world of Immortals, and yet
she accepts our human limitations, to be with us in the veiled form, and to guide, lead, and
sustain us till we achieve our ultimate aim of life. She takes up all the sorrows, miseries of all her
children so that we may be relieved and aspire to grow higher and higher, beyond our ignorance,
inconscience, and mortality.

Here these lines are supportive to some of questions related to The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
Whatever Sri Aurobindo has written in Savitri is His own Yoga, Sadhana and experiences. So it
applies to Him as well as The Mother. We know that Savitri and our Mother are one or the same.

Some devotees ask questions like “Why Sri Aurobindo and The Mother suffered like humans?”

The first thing is they never suffered like humans. Who knows they bore the sorrows of how
many devotees? Can any one imagine? They relieved us by that. What we need to know is
always what appears on top on surface to our human eyes, is not always the real side, and what’s
important is the truth behind the superficial appearance.

Another question in the same line “Why Sri Aurobindo and The Mother did not cure themselves?
When they could cure so many devotees because of their Sadhana?”

And the most famous one is “Why they left their physical envelope?”. I can not use the word
“die”, which generally some people use, while they ask this question.

The answer is common for both the question. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo did their Sadhana
for the whole mankind, for the whole nature, for the whole universe, but NOT only and only for
themselves, because they were not selfish. Sri Aurobindo left his physical envelope to create
base for the manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness. And then it was The Mother who
executed the manifestation of the same, and once when Her work was over, she left Her physical
envelope and now is with us, profoundly, in “Sookshma Sharira”, leading us to Supramental
Consciousness. Therefore, when we all ready to receive the Supramental Consciousness, The
Mother and Sri Aurobindo will return to us. Till then they are doing their Sadhana being in the
“Sookshma Sharira”, for us, because what The Mother assured to us? “You just do 1% of the
Sadhana required. Rest I will do it for you!”

Therefore, once again the pointer comes to our Sadhana.

Therefore,
Let us aspire for the Grace and Love of The Divine Mother,

Let us reject all that deviates us from finding Her Grace and Love,

Let us surrender ourselves totally to Her.