Date: 20 February, 2025
Venue: Online
Watch the recording HERE.
On 20th February, 2025, Mr. Narendra Murty, Research Associate, BhāratShakti was invited to deliver an online talk as part of the weekly YES Talks. YES – Yoga, Education and Spirituality – is an initiative started by Dr. Ramesh Bijlani of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Delhi Branch, based on the idea – Yoga is education. Education is incomplete without spirituality. Spirituality in practice is yoga.
Mr. Murty spoke on the theme of Human Aspiration and Divine Grace based on some lines selected from Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem, Savitri. In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo talks about the two great powers that crown all spiritual endeavour: HUMAN ASPIRATION and in response to that DIVINE GRACE. Mr. Murty spoke on this theme explaining the two concepts based on the definitions given by Sri Aurobindo in Letters on Yoga, Vol II along with stories and anecdotes and most importantly with the lines of ‘Savitri’, Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual masterpiece.
Mr. Murty spoke about how human aspiration prepares the ground for the Divine intervention and how our lives are touched and transformed when the Divine Grace enters our lives. The lines of Savitri chosen for the presentation were from the following sections:
- Book I, The Book of Beginnings, Canto 4: The Secret Knowledge
- Book III, The Book of the Divine Mother, Canto 2: The Adoration of the Divine Mother
- Book III, The Book of the Divine Mother, Canto 4: The Vision and the Boon
The incarnation of the Divine Mother on the earthly plane in the form of Savitri was an act of supreme Grace in response to the tapasya and the highest aspiration of Aswapati as a representative of the race for the transformation of earth nature and evolution of human consciousness to the next level.
Narendra Murty presented the depth and poetic beauty of lines in Savitri in the above-mentioned cantos that bring out the idea of Human Aspiration and Divine Grace – one of the central pillars of Integral Yoga. He also made the point that the tapasya of Aswapati that takes up only 10 lines in Vyasa’s Mahabharata, becomes 11000 lines in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – spread over 22 cantos out of the total of 49 cantos of Savitri. That is because Aswapati’s Yoga in Savitri, in fact, is a spiritual autobiography of Sri Aurobindo himself where he expressed the various levels of his sadhana in the highest form of mystical-spiritual poetry which has no parallels in the world.
The talk was appreciated by the participants.