Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1934 — 1935
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It won’t do to put excessive and sweeping constructions on what I write, otherwise it is easy to misunderstand its sense. I said there was no reason why poetry of a spiritual character (not any poetry like Verlaine’s or Swinburne’s or Baudelaire’s) should bring no realisation at all. That did not mean that poetry is a major means of realisation of the Divine. I did not say that it would lead us to the Divine or that anyone had achieved the Divine through poetry or that our “new” poetry can lead us straight into the sanctuary. Obviously if such exaggerations are put into my words, they become absurd and imbecile. But did I ever say anything of all that? Your difficulty in understanding me comes from this habit of putting into my mouth things which are not actually there in what I write.
My position is perfectly clear and there is nothing in it against reason or common sense. The Word has a power – even the ordinary written word has a power. If it is an inspired word it has still more power. What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word itself – as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures – Veda, Upanishads, Gita – it may well have a power for a spiritual impulse, uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation: to say that it cannot contradicts human experience.
The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these were illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga – but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. I have had in former times many 
illuminations, even initial realisations while pondering verses of the Upanishads or the Gita1. Many of Harin’s poems have been of immense help to persons here who were floundering and unable to progress – also to others who had begun to progress. You yourself know that your poems deeply moved people who had the tendency towards spiritual things. Many have got openings into realisation while reading passages of the Arya – which are not poetry, have not the power of spiritual poetry – but it shows all the more that the word is not without power even for the things of the spirit. In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped them and others. Therefore there is nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness of a psychic or spiritual character.
There is nothing unintelligible in what I say about strength and Grace. Strength has a value for spiritual realisation, but to say that it can be done by strength only and by no other means is a violent exaggeration. Grace is not an invention, it is a fact of spiritual experience. Many who would be considered as mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace; illiterate, without mental power or training, without “strength” of character or will, they have yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere. I do not see why these facts which are facts of spiritual history and of quite ordinary spiritual experience should be discussed and denied and argued as if they were mere matters of speculation. Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace. I have said times without number that if a man is sincere, he will go through in spite of long delay and overwhelming difficulties. I have repeatedly spoken of the Divine Grace. I have referred any number of times to the line of the Gita: Ahaṃ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ. [“I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve.” Gita, 18.66]
I do not remember what I said about Vivekananda. If I said he was a great Vedantist, it is quite true. It does not follow that all he said or did must be accepted as the highest truth or the best. His ideal of sevā was a need of his nature and must have helped him – it does not follow that it must be accepted as a universal spiritual necessity or ideal. Whether in declaring it he was the mouthpiece of Ramakrishna or not, I cannot pronounce. It seems certain that Ramakrishna expected him to be a great power for changing the world-mind in a spiritual direction and it may be assumed that the mission came to the disciple from the Master. The details of his action are another matter. As for proceeding like a blind man, that is a feeling that easily comes when a Power greater than one’s own
mind is pushing one to a large action; for the mind does not realise intellectually all that it is being pushed to do and may have its moments of doubt or wonderment about it – and yet it is obliged to go on. Vedantic (Adwaita) realisation is the realisation of the silent static or absolute Brahman – one may have that and yet not have the same indubitable clearness as to the significance of one’s action – for even
action
for the Adwaitin is
the shadow of Maya.
I hope all that is clear.
Current publication:
[A letter: ] Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo to Dilip / edited by Sujata Nahar, Shankar Bandyopadhyay.- 1st ed.- In 4 Volumes.- Volume 2. 1934 – 1935.- Pune: Heri Krishna Mandir Trust; Mysore: Mira Aditi, 2003.- 405 p.
Other publications:
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Yoga // SABCL.- Volume 22. (≈ 28 vol. of CWSA).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1971.- 502 p.
Sri Aurobindo. Letters on Himself and the Ashram // CWSA.- Volume 35. (≈ 26 vol. of SABCL).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2011.- 658 p.