Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1936

Letter ID: 1774

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

November 13, 1936

Guru, what else could it be if not a “hit” or at least shutting my mouth? Every time I complain of a great difficulty, no inspiration, you quote the names of Virgil, Milton, etc. Same in Yoga – you say 10 years, 12 years, pooh!

I thought you were honestly asking for the truth about inspiration according to Lawrence and effort; and I answered to that. I didn’t know that it was connected purely with your personal reactions. You did not put it like that. You asked whether Lawrence’s ideas were correct and I was obliged to point out that they were subject to qualification since both great and second class and all kinds of poets have not waited for a fitful inspiration but tried to regularise it.

When hour after hour passes in barren silence bringing unspeakable misery, these examples of great poets – Miltons, Virgils – who cannot be compared with small ones are no consolation at all. (Keats you mentioned on another occasion.)

All that about great poets is absolute imbecile nonsense. There is no question of great or small. It is a question of fluency or absence of fluency. Great, small and mediocre are alike in that matter – some can write fast and easily, others can’t.

When you bring in the examples of Milton and Virgil in poetry and the number of years in Yoga, you forget that they had no Supramental Avatar as Guru to push them on, Sir!

Considering that the Supramental Avatar himself is quite incapable of doing what Nishikanta or Jyoti do, i.e. producing a poem or several poems a day, why do you bring him in? In England indeed I could write a lot every day but most of that has gone into the Waste Paper Basket.

If you mean seriously that I have to wait 12 years, you will drive me to commit suicide, I tell you. Things are bad enough, Sir, and “sing on the way” indeed!

The rule of 12 years is one enounced not by me, but many Sanyasis and people who know about Yoga. Of course they are “professionals”, so to speak, while this is an Asram of amateur Yogis who expect quick results and no labour – and if they don’t get it, talk about despair and suicide.

God knows when I shall be above all this vital desire, sex, etc. When I think of the first 2 years, I heave a sigh thinking of such a retrogression, a fall. You have said that falls and failures bring something better and richer; what have they brought for me?

There is nothing peculiar about retrogression. I was also noted in my earlier time before Yoga for the rareness of anger. At a certain period of the Yoga it rose in me like a volcano and I had to take a long time eliminating it. As for sex – well. You are always thinking that the things that are happening to you are unique and nobody else ever had such trials or downfalls or misery before.

I have no other way but to surrender to the Divine, leaving Him to lead me through fires or flowers as He decides best. Can I “sing”, honestly?

I don’t see why not? Dilip used to sing whenever he felt suicidal.

Amal says Cousins ignored your poem “The Rishi” while speaking of the others. Isn’t that far worse?

Neither worse nor better. What does Cousins’ bad opinion about the “Rishi” matter to me? I know the limitations of my poetry and also its qualities. I know also the qualities of Cousins as a critic and also his limitations. If Milton had written during the life of Cousins instead of having an established reputation for centuries, Cousins would have said of Paradise Lost and still more of Paradise Regained “This is not poetry, this is theology”. Note that I don’t mean to say that “Rishi” is anywhere near “Paradise Lost”, but it is poetry as well as spiritual philosophy.