A Focused Journey Through Sri Aurobindo's Savitri

If you are depressed, if you feel miserable, if you do not succeed in anything that you undertake or else if what happens is always the contrary of what you expect, however much you try, if it has come to such a pass that you lose your temper, life becomes disgusting and you are unhappy, then immediately take Savitri and, after a moment's concentration, open it at any page and read. You will see that all your misery disappears like smoke. And you will have the strength to overcome the worst gloom of sorrows; you will no more feel that which tormented you. Instead you will feel a strange happiness, a reversal of consciouness along which the energy and force to conquer everything, as though there was nothing impossible. And you will feel this inexhaustible joy that purifies all. Read just a few lines and that is sufficient to establish the contact with your inmost being. Such is the extraordinary power of Savitri.

Or else, after having read some lines, if you concentrate deeply, then too will you find the solution to what was tormenting you. You have only to open Savitri just at random without reflecting and you will have the answer to your problems. Do this with faith and simplicity, the result is certain.

To all of us who have bathed in the Grace radiating from the lotus feet of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, their writings have been a great source of all that was needed to walk on the Way. This is especially true of SAVITRI which is Sri Aurobindo's magnum opus and about which the Mother has said, "He has crammed the whole universe in a single book". Evidently, the reading of SAVITRI is no simple task. It represents a journey into the unknown and a supreme approach to the Unknowable. The present book of extensive selections — covering all the Cantos and running into about half the length of the original —attempts to mark the Way with some useful signposts, making SAVITRI more accessible to the wayfarer along the path. The titles that have been given by the Editor to the selections have been marked with an asterisk (*) and, as mentioned above, are intended to provide a focus for the central message and theme of this vast and complex work while throwing, at the same time, some light on the content of the passage itself. The page numbers in parentheses appearing at the end of some selections refer to the page numbers of these selections in volumes 33 and 34 of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. It is hoped that spiritual seekers will find some help in approaching what may seem, at the outset, incomprehensible or at least daunting in SAVITRI. The work is dedicated to the lotus feet of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

**Contents and Sample Pages**