Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 3
Letter ID: 733
Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar
May 1936
I find this song of Jyoti on Krishna in his silent aspect rather attractive and full of poetic possibilities too, so I made some more changes and made that idea more central and dominating. As I read it I find I am rather captivated by its beauty. Jyoti had in the others égaré [strayed] a little from this central theme but as I conned it with nididhyāsana [a profound meditation] this mom it came rather forcefully to me. I feel you will find it greatly improved that is why I send – especially by way of contrast to the wealth of beauty-aspect which my original Hindi song portrays.
Nishikanta has written an attractive twin to my song of yesterday to which I have set the same music. Please adjudge. I will send you a truly magnificent long poem of Nishikanta this evening which you must read and enjoy – on the Jaydev1 model, more about it in the evening. In the meanwhile read these in ten minutes to be prepared for the inundation of poetry and image and opulence in laghu 
guru – and one of the most difficult and original metrical caviares of Jaydev. It will convince you more that I had made no mistake at all prophesying about laghu guru’s potentialities. A prophet too, awakes in me, what? Still why do I think – no Yoga for me? – with such unerring intuitions? eh? Qu’en dites-vous?
Quite so. Creator, prophet, seer, sage, the four degrees go together. You have jumped two hurdles – why not the others?
Yes, Jyotirmoyi’s is good. Nishikanta always shows the same skill. But I have kept the long one because the time was really too short to study it.
1 Jaydev: an eminent poet contemporary of Lakshmana Sena, king of Bengal (c. 1180-1202 A.D.). He wrote the famous lyric Gita Govindam. Nishikanta’s poem Rajhansa was in Jaydev’s metre. Rabindranath Tagore also highly praised this song.