Savitri Study Camps

A large part of our existence lurks behind the threshold and participates in a secret commerce with All-life. But the hope is the future that is asleep in the Superconscient realms beyond the Mind. These begin to unravel as the aspirant proceeds upon the great Path and the unprecedented journey.

The first class of the Aug 2016 session of the Savitri Study Camp with Alok Pandey. The introductory session is primarily an overview of the Book 7 Canto 2, which was a subject of the previous Study Camp.

There is a subconscious yoga going on in nature that has led to the progressive emergence of the soul from within the crypts of matter and the dark and fallen worlds. Slowly this subconscious yoga turns into a conscious one as man climbs to glimpses and starts climbing towards his own unrealized potentials.

Our being is trapped as it were within a triple layer formed of the substance of corresponding worlds of Mind, Life and Matter. These keep the soul captive and do not allow easy access to the realm of the Soul. The seeker has to force his way through these to reach his soul.

Savitri pierces the thick screen that separates this gross material life, sensed and perceived through our material senses, and the subtle inner worlds. She opens the doors and enters through the threshold between the waking and dream world.

Released from the prison house of Matter, Savitri enters into the dangerous and delightful, fitful and fanciful world of life. She has come out of individual ignorance but has entered into the cosmic ignorance, a much vaster and mixed territory where truth and error walk hand in hand.

There are powers and energies hidden in the intermediate zone between gross Matter and the ground of pure Spirit. It is here that the sadhaka can easily get lost and miss his goal. An attached letter of Sri Aurobindo describes it at some length.

Next Savitri enters the realm of Mind. It is a realm of measure and rule. It is the nature of Mind to define and limit into finite shapes and forms the Illimitable, Infinite One Reality. Thereby it misses upon Truth and mistakes It for its broken reflections and shadows and partial images.

The force of life chained, the mind dissects Truth into various bits and parts and assigns to each ‘piece’ a fixed formula. Thus are sects and religions formed that war with each other. But those who seek to go beyond, cannot remain tied to any dogmas and narrow belief systems.

Savitri passes beyond the limits of the mind. She comes in contact with certain luminous forms emerging out of her being rushing towards the outer waking consciousness. It is here that she gets the first hints of the passage towards her secret soul.

Savitri now enters the strands of Nature to swim to its Source. At first Savitri encounters the Madonna of Suffering who absorbs all earthly suffering and puts a balm over our pain. She gives us the strength to endure the trials of our life even though she has not the strength to save.

Even as the pristine pure Ganges flowing from its mountain tops is polluted as it enters the inhabited plains, so too the forces of higher Nature supported by divine Powers, daivi prakriti, are twisted as they enter into the narrow and limited scope of human nature. The distorting elements are the Ego and Desires.

Passing further on her nature’s upwards route, Savitri’s being encounters the Madonna of Strength, the Mother of Force and Might who brings the crown of victory and protects us on the paths of life as we move in our ascent towards yoga. She is Durga and Lakshmi, who endow us with the Kshatriya and Vaishya power.

The strength to save turns into the realm of our ego, the strength to plunder for our own sake, to love for our own sake, to use resources of nature for our own sake. At its extreme it creates in us the tyrant and the arrogant self-aggrandising Asura.

An opening class of the Savitri Study Camp No 20

Savitri passes onward towards her secret soul. Before entering the secret cave of her soul she encounters her being of Light, the Madonna of Light, Mother of Joy and Peace.

Even as Savitri meets her being of Light, she hears the echo from the lower human planes, that divert the message of the Light and the gifts it brings for its own small purposes.

Savitri has heard the voice of Light followed by the warped echo arising in the Mind of Night. She responds to her being of Light with a promise that one day she shall return and fulfill her work.