The Greatness of the Great, pp. 573-574

Opening Remarks
The greatness of the Great is the manifestation of the Divine Energy in moments of extreme adversity and crisis. Savitri shows us the way.

Mighty hour
All in her mated with that mighty hour,
As if the last remnant had been slain by Death
Of the humanity that once was hers.

Savitri rose up with all her strength in that most challenging hour. Rather than subduing her, the moment of death only helped her get rid of all her weakness and human striving self.

Wide spiritual control
Assuming a spiritual wide control,
Making life’s sea a mirror of heaven’s sky,
The young divinity in her earthly limbs
Filled with celestial strength her mortal part.

Savitri’s higher spiritual will now takes charge of her actions making her life in all its vastness a mirror reflecting the Divine. Her new born inner spiritual state built through the force of tapasya filled her humanity with divine strength.

Sovereign force
Over was the haunted pain, the rending fear:
Her grief had passed away, her mind was still,
Her heart beat quietly with a sovereign force.

The first sting of pain that haunted her always due to the prophesy, the fear of Satyavan’s death that tore her heart was over. Her heart was no more wallowing in grief and her mind was still. Her heart was quiet and filled with a sovereign force.

Godhead’s calm
There came a freedom from the heart-strings’ clutch,
Now all her acts sprang from a godhead’s calm.

She was freed from the clutch of attachment so that all sprang and emerged from a deep divine calm of her soul.

She rose to meet
Calmly she laid upon the forest soil
The dead who still reposed upon her breast
And bore to turn away from the dead form:
Sole now she rose to meet the dreadful god.

Calm in herself she laid Satyavan from her breasts to the forest soil. So now she turned away from the dead form and rose to meet the dreadful god of Death who held the soul of Satyavan with him.

Mightier spirit
That mightier spirit turned its mastering gaze
On life and things, inheritor of a work
Left to it unfinished from her halting past,
When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled
And ill-shaped instruments were crudely moved.

Her mighty spirit turned its mastering gaze upon life and things and the unfinished work she had taken up when the mind yet toiled as a passionate learner and the bodily and mental instruments were yet not fully developed.

Sovereign power
Transcended now was the poor human rule;
A sovereign power was there, a godlike will.

The human formulas was now transcended and replaced by a sovereign godlike will and force.

Savitri raised her noble head
A moment yet she lingered motionless
And looked down on the dead man at her feet;
Then like a tree recovering from a wind
She raised her noble head; fronting her gaze
Something stood there, unearthly, sombre, grand,
A limitless denial of all being
That wore the terror and wonder of a shape.

A moment yet she lingered motionless and looked upon the dead body of Satyavan lying at her feet. Then like a tree recovering from a wind she raised her noble. Then she raised her noble head and met the gaze of Something or Someone sombre and grand standing there as a limitless denial of being wearing the shape of terror and wonder.

Closing Remarks
Savitri rises up to the occasion and stands face to face with death.