Savitri
A Legend and a Symbol

Chapter 129349–351

Book 2. Fourth Period of Commentaries (1969)

judgments, because it is the faithful servant of the Divine whose abode it is.

23 February 1970 352 – Boast not thy riches, neither seek men’s praise for thy poverty and self-denial; both these things are the coarse or the fine food of egoism.

353 – Altruism is good for man, but less good when it is a form of supreme self-indulgence and lives by pampering the selfishness of others.

354 – By altruism thou canst save thy soul, but see that thou save it not by indulging in his perdition thy brother.

355 – Self-denial is a mighty instrument for purification; it is not an end in itself nor a final law of living. Not to mortify thyself but to satisfy God in the world must be thy object.

356 – It is easy to distinguish the evil worked by sin and vice, but the trained eye sees also the evil done by self-righteous or self-regarding virtue.

Step by step and from every angle, Sri Aurobindo shows us how the Truth is above and beyond all contraries and opposites, beyond divisions — in a radiant and total Unity.

25 February 1970 357 – The Brahmin first ruled by the book and the ritual, the Kshatriya next by the sword and the buckler; now the Vaishya governs us by machinery and the dollar, and the Sudra, the liberated serf, presses in with his doctrine of