Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1936

Letter ID: 1695

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

August 5, 1936

X, in his latest poem, has used one of my expressions. Suppose his were to be published and then mine – I would be misjudged as borrowing from him. How far is it justifiable for a poet to take the bhāva and expression from others and use them?

Great poets have borrowed from small ones and small poets from great ones, and it is difficult to lay down any law in the matter. But to lift things bodily like that from unpublished poems shown in confidence, is not delicate – nor, I think permissible.

Shall we be petty and mean if we don’t show our poems from such fear?

From the normal point of view it would be perfectly justified not to show your things – except of course for the fact that X and N have given you considerable help in forming yourselves as poets; but that is no reason why they should take things from your poems.

Please give the answer from the ordinary as well as the Yogic point of view.

From the Yogic point of view one ought to be indifferent and without sense of ownership or desire of fame or praise. But for that one must have arrived at the Yogic poise – such a detachment is not possible without it. I do not mind R’s lifting whole sentences and paragraphs from my writings at the World Conference as his own and getting credit for a new and quite original point of view.

But if I were eager to figure before the world as a philosopher, I would resent it. But even if one does not mind, one can see the impropriety of the action or take measures against its repetition, if one thinks it worth while.

You will see that it is really a problem that concerns all writers, for I am also tempted to take and use others’ expressions and bhāva but I don’t know if I should.

You should not – if for nothing else for the sake of the poetry and right development of your own inspiration.

A’s umbilical pain is gone, slight liver pain... She says she wrote to Mother at 3.30 p.m. and since then her pain has stopped. She has these attacks, so I would like to know whether the medicine has done her any good or the Force alone.

I suppose the medicine has done its part.

A worker in the hot water dept. had dysentery 3 weeks ago and was treated at home. Suddenly day before yesterday he had copious vomiting of dark blood. Came to us with chest pain...

Dark blood can’t be from the lungs? Not something wrong lower

down?