Part 1. The Mystery of the Strategic Divine Sacrifice
What really is the mystery of 5th December 1950, the day of Sri Aurobindo’s withdrawal or Mahasamadhi as it is called? Words often fail when we speak of anything related to Sri Aurobindo, – the Mystery of Mysteries that he remains. Never before in the entire history of spiritual beings can we find one with such varied many-sided realisations and yet someone who remained actively in touch with all the major world movements, dynamically assisting the march of civilization through his occult spiritual force that he had gathered through the unprecedented tapasya. Nor can anyone who has risen to the heights of the Spirit come near, let alone equal the quantity and quality of his vast spiritual literature. The only other known spiritual figure, Vyasa of the Isles, a lineage though he is, yet would be found wanting in terms of the breath-taking scope of Sri Aurobindo’s works. He is truly incomparable, one without a second, One representing in the limits of a form and name, the most profound truth of the Highest Purusha who is One without a second. The epithet would as much apply to Sri Aurobindo. Living among men as any other man he still remained untouched and pure as the lotus in full bloom remain unsullied by the mud around it. And yet this Lotus was pouring its light and fragrance to transform the mud! Unparalleled aims and scope of yoga and life do we find in Sri Aurobindo.
Therefore the words withdrawal and departure and Mahasamadhi all fall short. It is not withdrawal in the sense that Sri Aurobindo continues to be in contact with the earth and direct its movements towards the fulfilment of His work. The Mother has revealed this on several occasions, in fact stating that ‘he is much more accessible now’, ‘he continues to watch over the world and all its movements’, ‘his action has increased manifold’ since 1950. The most powerful one is wherein soon after the 5th December 1950, She revealed in the form of a prayer thus:
Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistakable terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed. Grant that we may be worthy of this marvellous Presence and that henceforth everything in us be concentrated on the one will to be more and more perfectly consecrated to the fulfilment of Thy sublime Work.
7 December 1950
It is difficult to understand this by the modern pragmatic mind so deeply conditioned by the materialistic standpoint and yet the logic of it is plain and simple to the spiritual mind. To the spiritual consciousness death does not exist except as a passage of transition of the soul from one form to another. Those who have completed the schooling of nature in this earthly life are not bound by the laws that hold the ordinary soul into fixed cycles of creation. If this is true even of souls that have realized inner freedom, it is much more so and at a very different scale for great Masters and still more so for Avatars. Speaking of Sri Krishna Sri Aurobindo observed that his work continued till the last spark died down from the sacrificial funeral pyre of Rani Lakshmi bai. Sri Aurobindo’s work has in fact just begun.
For similar reasons the word departure would not apply. Nor would the term Mahasamadhi which is rather generally reserved for the final plunge into Mahanirvana. It is a term to be used when a yogi has realized that the time has come to enter into the utter Unity with God. Thereby he leaves his last attachments to the world that were consciously kept to maintain some contact for the sake of helping others or for exhausting his old karmas or simply for a special work he had come to do. Again, none of this would apply to Sri Aurobindo who had long realized his utter identity with God right down to the body cells, who had no personal karmas to exhaust but a whole load of cosmic karma to bear for earth and men. The only word that would go for this tremendous day is ‘The Day of Divine Sacrifice.’
We stand in the Presence of Him who has sacrificed his physical life in order to help more fully his work of transformation. He is always with us, aware of what we are doing, of all our thoughts, of all our feelings and all our actions.
18 January 1951
Sri Aurobindo has given up his body in an act of supreme unselfishness, renouncing the realisation in his own body to hasten the hour of the collective realisation. Surely if the earth were more responsive, this would not have been necessary.
12 April 1953 [CWM 13: 8 – 9]
About Savitri | B1C1-10 The Response of Earth (p.5)