Correspondence 1934, June (III)

(Two letters about Sahana’s bengali translation of Sri Aurobindo’s poem “In Horis Aeternum”.)

June 1934

I feel the last verse makes very clear meaning anyway, but since Sahana is not pleased with it and she has been labouring at it for days, I think I may have mistaken your meaning. Doubtless, the “Something” I could not keep as I took it to mean that the passing moment reflects the Eternal when “caught by the spirit in sense”. Tell me therefore — О Lord I must stop.

I think it is a very fine rendering. In line 4 however I would not say that there is no reference to day as a movement of time but only to the noon, the day as sunlit space rather than time, it is the fixed moment, as it were, the motionless scene of noon. The eye is of course the sun itself, I mark by the dash that I have finished with my first symbol of the gold ball and go off to the second quite different one.

In the last line your translation is indeed very clear and precise in meaning, but it is perhaps too precise — the “something” twice repeated is meant to give a sense of just the opposite, an imprecise — unseizable something which is at once nothing and all things at a time. It is found no doubt in the momentary things and all is there, but the finding is less definite than your translation suggests. But the expression nāstirupe chhila je sarbbāsti is very good.

One point more. “Caught by a spirit in sense” means “there is a spirit in sense (sense not being sense alone) that catches the eternal out of perishable hours in these things.”

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June 18, 1934

Yes, I think it will do very well as a rendering, now. As for what you say about the rhythmic movement and the stresses, that is something new (I believe) in this form in English even. It is an attempt to combine — avoiding the chaotic amorphousness of free verse — a system of regular metrical measures with the greatest possible plasticity and variety whether as to the number of syllables, management of feet, if any, distribution of stress beats or changing modulation of the rhythm. “In Horis Aeternum” is merely a first essay, a very simple and elementary model for this endeavour. How far it can go in one direction or another has yet to be seen; but I don’t very well see for the moment how that is to be got into a Bengali cadence.

P.S. I struggled to get time to reply on your book and read Nishikanta but could not. Monday! I keep the book.

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In Horis Aeternum

A far sail on the unchangeable monotone of a slow slumbering sea,
A world of power hushed into symbols of hue, silent unendingly;
Over its head like a gold ball the sun tossed by the gods in their play
Follows its curve, — a blazing eye of Time watching the motionless day

Here or otherwhere, — poised on the unreachable abrupt snow-solitary ascent
Earth aspiring lifts to the illimitable Light, then ceases broken and spent,
Or in the glowing expanse, arid, fiery and austere, of the desert’s hungry soul, —
A breath, a cry, a glimmer from Eternity’s face, in a fragment the mystic Whole.

Moment-mere, yet with all eternity packed, lone, fixed, intense,
Out of the ring of these hours that dance and die, caught by the spirit in sense,
In the greatness of a man, in music’s outspread wings, in a touch, in a smile, in a sound,
Something that waits, something that wanders and settles not, a Nothing that was all and is found.

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June 28, 1934

First of all, why get upset by such slight things, a phrase in a poem, a tap on the head of doubt? I do not see at all why you should take it as a personal assault on yourself. It is clear from the poems themselves that they are not an assault but a riposte. Some have been criticising and ridiculing his faith and his sadhana, there have been criticisms and attacks on the Mother indicating that it is absurd to think her of as divine. Harin justifies his faith in his own way — and in doing so hits back at the critics and scorners. No doubt, he ought not to do so, he ought to disregard it all, as we have [hinted?] more than once. But it is a hard rule to follow for a militant enthusiasm endowed with a gift of expression. But what is there in all that to affect you who do not gibe at faith, even if you yourself doubt, and do not attack or criticise the Mother.

As for the sense of superiority, that too is a little difficult to avoid when greater horizons open before the consciousness, unless one is already of a saintly and humble disposition. There are men like Nag Mahashoy[1] in whom spiritual experience creates more and more humility, there are others like Vivekananda in whom it erects a great sense of strength and superiority — European critics have taxed him with it rather severely; there are others in whom it [fixes?] a sense of superiority to men and humility to the Divine. Each position has its value. Take Vivekananda’s famous answer to the Madras Pundit who objected to one of his assertions saying: “But Shankara does not say so.” To which Vivekananda replied: “No, Shankara does not say so, but I, Vivekananda, say so,” and the Pundit sank back annoyed and speechless. That “I, Vivekananda,” stands up to the ordinary eye like a Himalaya of self-confident egoism. But there was nothing false or unsound in Vivekananda’s spiritual experience. This was not mere egoism, but the sense of what he stood for and the attitude of the fighter who, as the representative of something very great, could not allow himself to be put down or belittled. This is not to deny the necessity of non-egoism and of spiritual humility, but to show that the question is not so easy as it appears at first sight. For if I have to express my spiritual experiences, I must do that with truth — I must record them, their bhāva, the thoughts, feelings, extensions of consciousness which accompany it. What am I to do with the experience in which one feels the whole world in oneself or the force of the Divine flowing in one’s being and nature or the certitude of one’s faith against all doubts and doubters or one’s oneness with the Divine or the smallness of human thought and life compared with this greater knowledge and existence? And I have to use the word “I” — I cannot take refuge in saying “This body” or “This appearance,” — especially as I am not a Māyāvadin.[2] Shall I not inevitably fall into expressions which will make Khitish Sen shake his head at my assertions as full of pride and ego? I imagine it would be difficult to avoid it.

Another thing, it seems to me that you identify faith very much with the mental belief — but real faith is something spiritual, a knowledge of the soul. The assertions you quote in your letter are the hard assertions of mental belief leading to a great vehement assertion of one’s creed and goal because they are one’s own and must therefore be greater than those of others — an attitude which is universal in human nature. Even the atheist is not tolerant, but declares his credo of Nature and Matter as the only truth and on all who disbelieve it or believe in other things he pours scorn as unenlightened morons and superstitious half-wits. I bear him no grudge for thinking me that; but I note that this attitude is not confined to religious faith but is equally natural to those who are free from religious faith and do not believe in Gods or Gurus.

[3][I don’t think that real faith is so very superabundant in this Ashram. There are some who have it, but for the most part I have met not only doubt, but sharp criticism, constant questioning, much mockery of faith and spiritual experience, violent attacks on myself and the Mother — and that has been going on for the last fourteen years and more. Things are not so bad as they were, but there is plenty of it left still, and I don’t think the time has come when the danger of an excessive faith is likely to take body.]

You will not, I hope, mind my putting the other side of the question. I simply want to point out that there is the other side, that there is much more to be said than at first sight appears, [and the moral of it all is that one must bear with what calm and philosophy one can the conflicts of opposing tendencies [or?] this welter of the Ashram atmosphere and wait till the time has come when a greater Light and with it some true Harmony can purify and unite and recreate.]

I have had a very heavy mail today and had no time to deal with the metre. I trust I shall be more free tomorrow — I will do my best, but I fear it is again a problem, too many longs together, too many shorts together for the English tongue. Never mind, we will see.

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[1] Nag Mahashoy: a householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna’s.

[2] Māyāvādin: one for whom the world is an illusion.

[3] The following passages within brackets have been omitted from the version published in the Centenary Edition (1972).