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“And more specifically, when asked by a youngster about the right way of reading Sri Aurobindo, the Mother replied:4 I advise always to read a little at a time, keeping the mind as tranquil as one can, without making an effort to understand, but keeping the head as silent as possible, and letting the force contained in what one reads enter deep within. This force received in the calm and the silence will do its work of light and, if needed, will create in the brain the necessary cells for the understanding. Thus, when one re-reads the same thing some months later, one perceives that the thought expressed has become much more clear and close, and even sometimes altogether familiar. It is preferable to read regularly, a little every day, and at a fixed hour if possible; this facilitates the brain-receptivity (emphasis in the original).”

“Savitri itself, one might say, is just such a ‘message from the unknown immortal Light’, revealed to humankind at the dawn of an age of global seeking and aspiration for change. To derive the utmost benefit from reading it, one must, to whatever degree, be able to open oneself to that Light. Much of Savitri describes things that take place in an inner consciousness or in subtle worlds beyond our normal awareness. The three books of Part One, forming the first half of the epic, are almost entirely of this character. After two opening cantos introducing the heroine’s crisis on the morning of the fateful day to which the narrative returns hundreds of pages later in ‘The Book of Death’, the rest of Part One is a flashback to the spiritual and occult experiences of Aswapati, the king and yogi who is Savitri’s father in the legend. These books culminate in a vision of the Divine Mother and her promise of an incarnation who is to bring a new factor into the play of forces upon earth.”

“In contrast, he describes spiritual transformation as an ‘established descent of the spiritual peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the self and the divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that’.18 The path to spiritual transformation leads the seeker through several experiences and realizations: temporary stages of peace, calm and silence; the discovery of the Self and its experience on various planes of consciousness; and experiences on the higher planes with its different layers—Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Overmind. Not only to receive influences from these planes, but to actually live in them is, according to Sri Aurobindo, ‘a definite stage in the movement towards transformation’.19 Finally, we learn about the two main and alternating movements leading to spiritual transformation—the ascent of the lower consciousness towards the higher, and the descent of the higher, of peace, force, light and Ananda, into the lower to transform it. These and the experiences connected with them end this remarkable journey from the first opening of the inner veil to the psychic and spiritual transformation of all the planes and parts of the being, opening the gate to the essence and crown of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga: the supramental transformation.”