Yoga of King Aswapathy (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781505434309)

In the epic poem of Savitri, Sri Aurobindo has depicted Aswapathy, King of Madra and father of Savitri as a symbolic character, representing human race. In Mahabharata, King Aswapathy was childless. He performed eighteen years of Tapasya with austerities and hundred thousand sacrifices to have a child. The Divine Mother appeared before him out of sacrificial fire. She bestowed upon him a daughter as a boon. But Aswapathy of Sri Aurobindo pleads and persuades the Supreme Mother to descend on earth and transform mortality to immortality. She was pleased and consented to be born as his daughter, Savitri; and said "Fate shall be changed by the unchanging will" (91.9). Sri Aurobindo conceived Aswapathy as a symbol of aspiring human soul descended on earth from divine heights to acquire knowledge of the Self and the World as a human being. The opening sentence of the Canto on Yoga of King- "A WORLD desire compelled her mortal birth." (5.1), clearly indicates the symbolic role of Aswapathy. Aswapathy was a forerunner to do yoga for the transformation of the earth to heaven and material life to divine life. His penances were trials and tribulations of the evolving soul of humanity and was a long struggle to attain Truth and realise the Self. Having realised the Self, he prayed to the Supreme Divine Mother to bring heaven to earth and to divinise human life. She was pleased with his ascention, realisation and achievements. She revealed herself before him and asked him to be content with his personal achievements and leave the rest to the destiny. But Aswapathy, not being satisfied with his individual release persisted and persuaded Her to descend and change the earth and Nature and remove the suffering in the world. She consented and blessed him with a boon that she would be born as his daughter. The world on earth is still in darkness and is struggling between Inconscient around and Superconscient above. It is a masked Infinite appearing as Nescience. The Mother says Earth is formed for the sake of evolution and ascension towards Consciousness, but in the Unconscious and in the Nothingness. A fathomless Zero, a pregnant shunya has occupied the earth. Earth is wheeling in the hollow gulfs of space, as if abandoned to herself. In that inscrutable darkness some unthought Idea stirred. It was insistent and self-existent. This exerted pressure and teased the Inconscient to wake ignorance. Sri Aurobindo has explained that this Inconscient is very real and concrete. In Savitri, he writes: "........... the Inconscient too is infinite; The more its abysses we insist to sound, The more it stretches, stretched endlessly" (83.14). It must be disturbed, goaded into some awareness. The stir has produced a moving wave and gave room for an old tired want unfulfilled. This want has been lying in the subconscient levels in a dark moonless cave. This has raised its head looking for light. This cannot die because it is the seed, the very essence of Immortality. It contains an upward drive and a downward drag of the evolutionary movement that has created the Cosmos. The present determinism of Nature is to perpetuate the rule of Ignorance in mankind. Its chief fulcrum is Ego in the human being and Desire is its dynamic support. These forces give rise to pain and suffering.

Author: G. N. Narayana Reddy
ISBN-10: 1505434300
ISBN-13: 9781505434309
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Language: English
Published: 11/24/2014
Pages: 190
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.54lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.44d