Spiritual Aspect of Sacrifice in Savitri

The word Sacrifice evokes different meaning in different people. Yet it is one of the foundational pillars, perhaps the central one, in the yoga of the Vedic seers. By the close of the Vedic Age, the term had lost its original sense and power in a mass of ritual ceremonies until Sri Krishna revived it once again by declaring its original meaning, its symbol as well as the esoteric truth underlying it. Over a period of time the intrinsic sense was again lost until Sri Aurobindo brought it out through his several writings and the practice of Yoga.  He wrote thus in The Life Divine.

‘The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man’s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.’

But the most complete sense and relevance to the yoga as well as to creation and our life in general is revealed through significant imagery in his ultimate work, Savitri, where Sri Aurobindo helps us discover it at several levels and in a comprehensive way. This talk will take up all the various aspects and dimensions of ‘Sacrifice’ through the divine vision of Savitri.