Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1936

Letter ID: 1697

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

August 8, 1936

If you have thought it is the apparent period of sterility etc. that has produced this “maturity”, I am afraid it is not quite so.

I still think so and think that it is quite so.

For, this poem upon which you have based your opinion, was actually started, and one and a half stanzas were completed, on the 25th of July or so, i.e. before “the period of sterility”. The rest only was done in these 2 or 3 days.

It is not confined to you or this case but a general psychological principle – the action behind the veil, even the psychologists who do not believe in Yoga have begun to recognise the large part this plays in Nature.

So I’m a little puzzled about the “going in”.

I do not remember having said anything about “going in”. I believe I spoke of something “going on” behind the veil during the time of apparent sterility in the outer being.

When you said “suddenly” did you mean that the maturity of power has come in fully in this poem?

When I said suddenly I meant as I said, that it appears in these two bigger poems and was not there before. A progress was there, but not this.

I thought that development in poetry has a connection with the development in Yoga as well. But you mention the two separately.

If poetic progress meant a progress in the whole range of Yoga, NK would be a great Yogi by this time. The opening in poetry or any other part helps to prepare the general opening when it is done under the pressure of Yoga, but it is at first something special, like the opening of the subtle vision or subtle senses. It is the opening of a special capacity in the inner being.

Though maturity has come in, the substance and depth are remarkably lacking – I think they’ve come in J’s poems.

There is a much greater ripeness in the thought-substance as well as the rest.

What is more visible and very vivid, it seems to me, is the word-beauty of the poem. It doesn’t make one think or stir deeply with the discovery of some hidden treasure.

I don’t know exactly what you mean by that – in yourself or in the reader? You say you have not the enthusiasm of creation, so your own feeling in the matter is not conclusive.

All this maturity etc. is all right, only it doesn’t thrill me or give me satisfaction... No interest in life or its creative activities, especially when I see that I am the same Man of Sorrows... Please don’t taunt me saying that it is all D!

No. D this time is making a valiant attempt to suppress the Man of Sorrows in him and seems so far to have succeeded. I hope you too will soon screw up your energy to the pitch of throwing off this encumbrance.

... I’m now trying to keep myself as busy as possible; it won’t allow the mind to feed on those poisons.

Well, that is right – at least it helps.

I don’t know whether the Goddess of Poetry will withdraw her boon because I don’t care much for it.

She doesn’t seem to be doing so.

Anyway, do you understand my psychology and, if you do, will you give some answers, not mystic but mental?

It is quite easy to understand if one realises that the natural being is not of one piece, but made up of parts or quantums or whatever one likes to call it. One part of your mind and vital has the need though not yet the push for the Divine and that need is becoming very prominent – ... Another doesn’t believe in, or hope for anything. One part of the mind resorts to poetry but cannot wake the vital enthusiasm, because the vital is besieged by the Man of Sorrows. Then there is the man of sorrows himself mixing in everything. Different parts of the mind take different sides and suggest opposite things according as they are pushed by one force or another. As yet no resolution of the central being to put all that into harmony, expel what is to be expelled, change what is to change. I don’t know whether you call that mystic or mental answers, but I can’t give you any other that would be true.

... Today D.L.’s stools were examined, again there were swarms.

[Sri Aurobindo underlined the word “swarms”.]

What’s this word? It looks like “swarms”! Swarms of what?