He was perhaps the first great email guru. He spent night after night for decades writing ten-liners to his disciples

Re: Savitri, Surrender and the Void by Rod Hemsell

by Rod on Sun 27 May 2007 07:25 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

I too felt like pouncing on the assertion of fact, but let me try another tack. To bring this delightful exchange to a close, let me refer to some lines that I quoted in the commentary on Savitri with which this discussion began.

A stillness absolute, incommunicable,

Meets the sheer self-discovery of the soul;

And:

Then suddenly there came a downward look.

As if a sea exploring its own depths,

A living Oneness widened at its core

And joined him to unnumbered multitudes.

On the basis of these explicit statements about the soul, and at least a hundred other similar ones to which I have frequently referred in my commentaries on Savitri, I believe it is a fact that the purusa which experiences the stillness of the void is the same one which experiences the sea of oneness. And since there is no other than this Self, seated in fact in the heart, what it experiences is the Void as itself, and then the oneness of all as itself. Moreover, as is repeatedly illustrated in Savitri, the void experience precedes the oneness experience. These are textual facts. I will not go so far as to say that they are facts of existence, though I believe that they are, based on experience. It is a fact of experience that these are facts of existence. Sri Aurobindo has tried to help us understand these ffacts of spiritual experience, to say the least.

He was perhaps the first great email guru. He spent night after night for decades writing ten-liners to his disciples. I'm sure he would have used a laptop if he could. A speculative certainty. But he would not have relied on the message alone. He had the force of the Mother and the devotion of the sadhaks to make his efforts worthwhile.