The Theme of Deliverance

(A Note on Sri Aurobindo’s Works)

K. V. S. MURTI

“I take my stand on my feeling and experience...
as Keats did on his, about truth and beauty.”
–SRI AUROBINDO

The soul is the replica of the Universe: a refraction of the Divine. Yet it is imprisoned in the corporeal shape. Man’s state is an incarceration in the encircling Evil or the circumambient Maya. The lure of the mundane, the magic of Maya, distracts the soul from the Real: the many-coloured dome of life’s fatalism obscures the Vision. Man or his soul so remains dim. The release from the terrestrial magic or evil is the process of refinement, or deliverance, from the virtual to the Real, from Bhedato Abheda, from dissonance to assonance. The refinement requires the delivering Agent or Sadhana. Sri Aurobindo has achieved it through Love and Yoga. And the Saint has loaded every rift of his literary output with the ore of his Refinement, or Deliverance, that can be succinctly illustrated.

Sri Aurobindo symbolically dramatizes the ‘concept of Deliverance’ in his plays. He has defined the horrid captivity of Evil in the unfinished fragment: The House of Brut. The diabolic Albion-like King Humber captures Princess Estrild, employs her as a slave, and compels her to dance and serve him wine in a ‘goblet fashioned out of her father’s skull.’ Humber stands for Evil: and Estrild symbolizes the individual self in captivity. Only the descent of Love or Divine Power can effect the deliverance into Harmony. In The Viziers of Bassora, Anice-al-Jalice, a lovely slave-girl bought in the slave-market, is placed in captivity. She is to be presented to the evil King of Bassora. Nureddene, the romantic son of the good Vizier Alfazzal, breaks through the guard and carries her away to Baghdad. The Soldan Haroun-al-Rashid undertakes to deliver them. Guided by the wicked Vizier Almuene, evil King of Bassora captures Nureddene and imposes the penalty of death. Haroun-al-Rashid descends in time and purifies Bassora, punishing the wicked and saving the good. The King of Bassora represents Evil and Almuene Malignity. Anice-al-Jalice symbolizes the Pure Soul and Beauty: Nureddene is Love and Reality. Beauty and Reality are delivered from the captivity of Evil to reign supreme in the refined harmony of Bassora. The same theme is dramatized in a different way in Perseus the Deliverer. Syria is the arena of Evil. Princess Andromeda is Pity and the yearning Soul: Perseus is Power and Providence, Divinity and Deliverer. The blood-thirsty sea-god Poseidon is Evil and the megalomaniac Priest Polydaon is the Spite of Evil. Compassionate Andromeda releases the to-be-sacrificed humans trapped in the temple of the sea-god. The spiteful Priest compels the pious King to leave the Princess chained to a rock for Evil to prey upon her. The captive surrenders herself to the Divine Power for deliverance. Descends the Divine Hero Perseus, shatters Evil, and delivers the captive Soul to unite with Power. Andromeda and Perseus are united, as Isabella and the Duke in Measure for Measure. The two plays appear as two different Sri Aurobindonian versions of the Shakespearean Measure for Measure. Overzealous interpreters have gone to the extent of finding too much political allegory in Perseus the Deliverer, and said that it is an imaginative rendering of the ideas of the Indian Revolution, which appears far-fetched. The play however is the key to the pervading theme of deliverance, or refinement. On Man’s behalf, Pallas Athene warns Evil (Poseidon):

Me the Omnipotent
Made from His being to lead and discipline
The immortal spirit of man, till he attain
To order and magnificent mastery
of all his outward world........
I bid thee not,
O azure strong Poseidon, to abate
Thy savage tumults: rather his march oppose.
For through the shocks of difficulty and death
Man shall attain his godhead.

The theme is reiterated in the chorus-like summing-up of Perseus at the end:

But the blind nether forces still have power...
....little by little earth must open to Heaven
Till her dim soul awakens into light.

In Eric, Vasavadutta and Rodogune, he dramatizes the ‘leap of love across the abyss of hate’. Love is the delivering agent releasing the self from the captivity of Hate and Spite. In Eric, this is what he articulates in the voice of Aslaug:

Love is the hoop of the gods
Hearts to combine.
Iron is broken, the sword
Sleeps in the grave of its lord;
Love is divine.

She is the sister of Swegn killed by the evil Eric. With murderous dagger in her bosom, the spiteful Aslaug comes to the court of Eric. Wily Eric imprisons her. Her beauty refines him and he requests her to eschew hatred. Gradually she too finds her ‘soul into the grasp delivered’. The result is a double deliverance, the union of refined bosoms in harmony. Similarly, in Vasavaduttatoo: King Mahasegu designs a trap, captures Udayan, and keeps him ‘a captive in Ujjayini’s golden groves’, under the care of his lovely daughter Vasavadutta. Between the Prince and the Princess, the lute plays as a symbol of love. Hatred is neutralized and truth and beauty are united. The whole design finally appears to be a contrivance to bridge the gulf of enmity between the rival kingdoms. The play reminds us of Shakespeare’s Tempest. The theme is further lifted to tragic glory in Rodogune. Beautiful Rodogune, the daughter of the Parthian King Phraates is placed as a captive attendant of the Syrian Queen Cleopatra. Her two sons Antiochus and Timocles fall in love with Rodogune. But the love of Rodogune and Antiochus is mutual. Timocles is Evil and the fire of Evil is fanned by Malignity (the Chancellor, Phayllus). Syria is converted into an arena of slaughter. Death delivers the lovers into Eternal Union. Rodogune symbolizes Purity and Antiochus Reality: Purity is wedded to Reality in Heaven. That is how Timocles sums up in his lamentation at the end:

Brother, brother,
unto eternity
We are divided.
I must live for ever
Unfriended, solitary in the shades;
But thou and she will lie at ease in armed
Deep in the quite happy asphodel
And hear the murmur of Elysian winds
While I walk lonely.

The plays of Sri Aurobindo are thus a symbolic dramatization of ‘the deliverance of the individual self from the captivity of Evil’

II

Implicated in a bomb-case during the Indian struggle for Inde­pendence, Sri Aurobindo was incarcerated in the Alipore gaol. Cloistered concentration seems to have given him the first glimpse of Narayana Darsan. In his famous Uttarapara Speech, he discloses the fact:

I looked at the jail that secluded me from men...It was Vasudeva who surrounded me ... I lay on the coarse blankets that were given to me for a couch and felt the arm of Srikrishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover...This was the first use of the deeper vision He gave me. I looked at the prisoners in the jail...it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies.

The Saint’s experience of self-refinement and yearning for the deliverance of the self and the universe from the captivity of Evil and Maya are expressed in two fine short poems.. The deli­verance of the spirit is the piercing through the magic shell of mayathrough sadhanaand identifying with the Fine. The Gita says:

Dhyanenatmani pasyanti Kechidatmanamatmana (XIII, 24)

‘Some by meditation (dhyana) release, the self to behold the Self (Paramatma) in their mind’. Sri Aurobindo employs his own terminology to mention the stages of deliverance: ‘Mind’, ‘Higher Mind’, ‘Illumined Mind’, ‘Intuitive Mind’, ‘Overmind’ and ‘Supermind’. And the flight of the thought as in dhyana, trans­gressing the different hurdles of mayabetween the individual self and the Universal Self, is beautifully presented in the poetic fragment, Thought the Paraclete, employing the triple image ‘archangel’ and ‘hyppogriff’ and ‘paraclete’ and the range of the colour-imagery: ‘green’ - ‘orange’ - ‘gold red’ - ‘pale blue’ - ‘crimson white’ – ‘white fire’ – ‘eternal sunned’. Here are the stages:

As some bright archangel in vision flies
Plunged in dream-caught spirit immensities
Past the long green crests of the seas of life,
Past the orange skies of the mystic mind
Flew my thought self-lost in the vasts of God.
Sleepless wide great glimmering wings of wind
Bore the gold-red seeking of feet that trod
Space and Time’s mute vanishing ends.

The face
Lustered pale-blue-lined of the hippogriff,
Eremite, sole, daring the bourneless ways,
Over world-bare summits of timeless being
Gleamed: the deep twilights of the world-abyss
Failed below.

Sun-realms of supernal seeing.
Crimson-white mooned oceans of pauseless bliss
Drew its vague heart-yearning with voiceless sweet.
Hungering, large-souled to surprise the unconned
Secrets white-fire-veiled of the last Beyond,
Crossing power-swept silences rapture-stunned,
Climbing high-far ethers eternal-sunned,
Thought the great-winged wanderer paraclete
Disappeared, slow-singing a flame-word rune.

The climaxing movement is that the magic of the personal conscious­ness yields place completely to the total identity of the individual self with the universal self­–

Self was left, lone, limitless, nude, immune.

The process, of conquering the practical knowledge about the fusion of the individual self with the Cosmic Self is Jnana Yoga, Self-illumination or Atmadarsan. It is an exercise of reaching and catching the tantalizingly held-out Grapes of Illumination. With the Jnanain the breast, the involved invocation to the Divine to glow in Human Mind for the deliverance of Mankind is real Bhakti Yoga. This inversion of Jnana Yoga into Bhakti Yoga (like the inversion of a sand-glass) is the essence of the tiny poem: The Rose of God. The rose is a symbol of God: Bliss (heart), Light (mind), Power (will), Life (body) and Love (soul) are the colourful petals of the Rose. The Rose of God is invoked: Bliss, is invited to leap in human heart, Light to live in the mind, Power to ablaze the will, Life to transform the body, and Love to arise in the soul. The Divine is thus begged to ‘make the earth the home of the wonderful and life Beatitude’s kiss.’

III

The concept is given sublime treatment in his two major works–The Life Divine and Savitri. The Life Divine is indeed ‘a treatise on metaphysics.’ Sri Aurobindo in the first volume describes ‘Omnipresent Reality and the Universe.’ And in the second volume, he explains the process of deliverance. In a key-passage, he says:

We perceive that our existence is a sort of refraction of the divine existence, in inverted order of ascent and descent, thus ranged:

Existence
Consciousness-Force
Bliss
Supermind
Mind
Psyche (Soul)
Life
Matter

The Divinedescends from pure existence through the play of Consciousness-Force and Bliss and the creative medium of supermind into cosmic being; we ascend from Matter through a developing life, soul and mind and the illuminating medium of supermind towards the divine being. The knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemisphere, is where mind and supermind meet with a veil between them. The rending of the veil is the condition of the divine life in humanity; ...

The Divine Grace descends into the pure self and lifts it through the ‘Higher Realms of Satchidananda.’ This is the process of transfiguration or refinement of the self; the deliverance from Bhedato Abheda, from Ignorance to Reality.

Savitriis the continuation and conclusion of The Life Divine. With all the literary beauty, it is a ‘Cosmic Epic.’‘Deliverance or transcendance’ of the ‘Earth and Mankind’ is its central theme. It is ‘A Legend and a Symbol.’ The Savitri-Satyavan legend in the Mahabharata is used as a symbol of the ‘Cosmic Theme of Deliverance.’ The epic is designed in three parts. The three major characters are: Savitri, Satyavan, and Yama. Next in importance are: Aswapathy, his Consort, and Narad. The epic describes a three-tier action. At the legendary level: King Aswapathy worships the Divine Mother and obtains a daughter Savitri as a boon; she marries the ill-fated Satyavan, defeats Yama, and regains her husband from the jaws of death. At the spiritual level: the ‘Yogic Spirit’ invokes the ‘Infinite Spirit’ to descend; the ‘Infinite’ descends and delivers the ‘Finite Spirit’ from the ‘Spirit Death.’ At the cosmic level: Savitri symbolizes Beauty, Devotion, and Power; Satyavan denotes Purity, Love, and Truth; Yama stands for Darkness, Fate, and Death; the cosmic ‘Time, Space, Action’ are displayed in terms of the ‘Triumph of power over Death reinforcing Eternal Truth’. Aswapathy is the ‘Aspiring King’–the Yoginand the ‘Witness of World-Transformation.’ Sri Aurobindo writes:

Aswapathy’s yoga falls into three parts. First he is achieving his own self-fulfilment as the individual and this is described as the yoga of the king. Next, he makes the ascent as a typical representative of the race to win the possibility of discovery and possession of all the planes of consciousness and this is described in the second book: but this too is as yet only an individual victory. Finally, he aspires no longer for himself but for all, for a universal realization and new creation. That is described in the book of the Divine Mother.

The Yoginin his dhyanalifts his mind into the higher realms of ‘Secret Knowledge’ shelving down the robes of maya. A ‘wide God-knowledge pours down from above,’ ‘the Individual Self’ and the ‘Universal Self’ meet in ‘the magnitude of God’s embrace,’ and ‘bearing the burden of the world’s desire’ the self passes through Satchidananda. He falls ‘at her feet unconscious, prone.’ His will takes up ‘the reins of Cosmic Force’ and invokes the Divine Mother for the deliverance of the ‘Earth and Mankind.’ ‘One shall descend and break the iron law’ and ‘Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth’–that is the boon granted by the Divine Mother. ‘The descent, the action, and the fulfilment’ are described in the second and third parts. Savitri, the ‘Incarnation of the Divine Mother’, is born as the daughter of Aswapathy. She prepares herself to face the battle with Yama (Death) for the deliverance of Satyavan (Human Race). She becomes a Yoginand acquires Spiritual power through sadhana. She fulfils herself in the triple role: as ‘devout wife, spiritual saviour, and World-Deliverer.’ The fatal moment approaches: Satyavan cries out for Savitri and falls dead. She observes ‘Visible Death’ standing there. The strife between Savitri and Yama, Love and Death, Light and Darkness, is spread over the entire third part. Vanquished Yama takes ‘Refuge in the Night’–‘the dire universal shadow’ disappears ‘vanishing into the Void from which it came.’ Man is delivered from Darkness and Death. Savitri’s victory means:

A power leaned down, a happiness found its home.
Over wide earth brooded the infinite bliss,

which is the deliverance of the Earth. Night fades away yielding place to Dawn: it is a ‘New Dawn,’ the ‘Eternal Dawn’ of ‘the blissful life of Mankind.’

To conclude: in the drama’s, deliverance from the evil circles of Inferno is described; in the poems, the peak of Purgatoriois displayed; and in the major work, the Paradisoof the deliverance of ‘the self and the star-crossed race of man’ is embellished in cosmic dimensions.

Our human ignorance moves towards the Truth
That Nescience may become omniscient.

–such is the robust optimism of Sri Aurobindo conveyed his literary art as a unique Indo-English writer.

MATERIAL ON

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY

AN APPEAL

Sir,

I am engaged on a study of the life, letters and works of the late Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. To augment my collection of material, I should be grateful if anyone who has letters, pamphlets, articles, tributes, reviews, books or information dealing with him would communicate with me. Letters and MS. will be copied and returned by registered post and a catalogue of all sources of information will be published.

I shall be glad to hear of any photographs, paintings, drawings, or other material that should be recorded in the preparation of this work.

S. DURAI RAJA SINGAM
House Seven,
Section Eleven - Three,
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia