Foundation Ceremony

Foundation Ceremony

Extract from the address given by Dr. Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo’s scribe for Savitri, when he laid the foundation stone of Savitri Bhavan on November 24, 1995:

“I congratulate those lovers of Sri Aurobindo’s immortal epic Savitri who have conceived the idea of having a building here, the Savitri Bhavan. It is a pioneer attempt, started here before anywhere else, so far as I know.

This Savitri Bhavan project, now in its infant stage, is, if I may say so, a twin to the Matrimandir. The Matrimandir is much further developed and already showing some of its future glory; this new project has a great potential and will be growing up to an extent we cannot easily foresee. I consider myself fortunate to have been asked to lay its foundation stone.”

Laying of Foundation Stone of Savitri Bhavan by Nirodda

Nirodda with the Foundation Stone

Dr. NIrodbaran then read the following extract from Sri Aurobindo’s poem :

The Truth shall be the leader of their lives,
Truth shall dictate their thought and speech and act,
They shall feel themselves lifted nearer to the sky,
As if a little lower than the gods.
For knowledge shall pour down in radiant streams
And even darkened mind quiver with new life
And kindle and burn with the Ideal’s fire
And turn to escape from mortal ignorance.
The frontiers of the Ignorance shall recede,
More and more souls shall enter into light,
Minds lit, inspired, the occult summoner hear
And lives blaze with a sudden inner flame
And hearts grow enamoured of divine delight
And human wills tune to the divine will,
These separate selves the Spirit’s oneness feel,
These senses of heavenly sense grow capable,
The flesh and nerves of a strange ethereal joy
And mortal bodies of immortality.
A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell
And take the charge of breath and speech and act
And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns
And every feeling a celestial thrill.
Often a lustrous inner dawn shall come
Lighting the chambers of the slumbering mind;
A sudden bliss shall run through every limb
And Nature with a mightier Presence fill.
Thus shall the earth open to divinity
And common natures feel the wide uplift,
Illumine common acts with the Spirit’s ray
And meet the deity in common things.
Nature shall live to manifest secret God,
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine.

Sri Aurobindo, Savitri
SABCL vol. 29, pp. 710-711