I will try to recapture it in French (gesture of pulling down from above).The Mother
Agenda
Volume 3
September 18, 1962
I don't have far to go on my translation of The Synthesis of Yoga (it's going very quickly), and I have found what I'll do next.... It will be something like those notebooks [Prayers and Meditations]. I am going to take the whole section of Savitri (to start with, I'll see later) from “The Debate of Love and Death” to the point where the Supreme Lord makes his prophecy about the earth's future; it's long – several pages long. This is for my own satisfaction.
I am going to translate it line by line (not word by word – line by line), leaving a space between each line; and when I've finished I will try to recapture it in French (gesture of pulling down from above).
I am not doing it to show it to people or to have anyone read it, but to remain in Savitri's atmosphere, for I love that atmosphere. It will give me an hour of concentration, and I'll see if by chance.... I have no gift for poetry, but I'll see if it comes! (It surely won't come from a mentality developed in this present existence – there's no poetic gift!) So it's interesting, I'll see if anything comes. I am going to give it a try.
I know that light. I am immediately plunged into it each time I read Savitri. It is a very, very beautiful light.
So I am going to see.
First of all, I'll concentrate on it just as Sri Aurobindo said it in English, using French words. Then I'll see if something comes WITHOUT changing anything – that is, if the same inspiration he had comes in French. It will be an interesting thing to do. If I can do one, two, three lines a day, that's all I need; I will spend one hour every day like that.
I don't have anything in mind. All I know is that being in that light above gives me great joy. For it is a supramental light – a supramental light of aesthetic beauty, and very, very harmonious.
So now I don't mind finishing The Synthesis. I was a little bothered because I have no other books by Sri Aurobindo to translate that can help me in my sadhana: there was only The Synthesis. As I said, it always came right on time, just when it was needed for a particular experience.
When this new translation is finished (because I know Savitri, I know what it is), I know that when it's finished... either I'll be there or else things will take a very long time.1
All his other books that could help me are already translated. And with Savitri, the idea isn't to make a translation, but to SEE. To try something. To give me the daily experience of that contact.
I had some magnificent experiences when I read it the first time (two years ago, I believe). Wonderful, wonderful experiences! And since then, each time I read those lines, the same thing happens – not the same experience, but I come in contact with the same realm.
It will be an interesting thing to do.
It's more interesting than listening to everybody's stories! Oh
.. (Mother raps her head).
That's all.
ADDENDUM
(These are the last lines of Savitri Mother translated. They were found in her notebook under the date July 1, 1970.)
But how shall I seek rest in endless peace
Who house the mighty Mother's violent force,
Her vision turned to read the enigmaed world,
Her will tempered in the blaze of Wisdom's sun
And the flaming silence of her heart of love?
The world is a spiritual paradox
Invented by a need in the Unseen,
A poor translation to the creature's sense
Of That which for ever exceeds idea and speech,
A symbol of what can never be symbolised,
A language mispronounced, misspelt, yet true.2
(X.IV.647)
(Mother's translation)
1.7.1970
Mais comment puis-je chercher le repos dans une paix sans fin
Moi qui abrite la force violente de la formidable Mère,
Sa vision attentive à lire le monde énigmatique,
Sa volonté trempée par le brasier du soleil de la Sagesse
Et le silence flamboyant de son coeur d'amour?
Le monde est un paradoxe spirituel
Inventé par un besoin dans l'Invisible,
Une pauvre traduction pour les sens des créatures
De Cela qui à jamais dépasse l'idée et la parole,
Un symbole de ce qui ne peut jamais être symbolisé,
Un langage mal prononcé, mal épelé, pourtant vrai.
1 See in the Addendum the last lines of Savitri that Mother translated.
2 Here are the three following lines, which Mother never translated:
Its powers have come from the eternal heights
And plunged into the inconscient dim Abyss
And risen from it to do their marvelous work.