Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Third Series

Fragment ID: 20958

Poetry can start from any plane of consciousness although like all art – or, one might say, all creation. – it must always come through the vital if it is to be alive. And as there is always a joy in creation, that joy along with a certain enthousiasmos – not enthusiasm, if you please, but anandamaya avesh – must always be there whatever the source. But your poetry differs from the lines you quote. Your inspiration comes from the linking of the vital creative instrument to a deeper psychic experience, and it is that which makes the whole originality and peculiar individual power and subtle and delicate perfection of your poems. It was indeed because this linking-on took place that the true poetic faculty suddenly awoke in you; for it was not there before, at least on the surface. The joy you feel, therefore, was no doubt partly the simple joy of creation, but there comes also into it the joy of expression of the psychic being which was seeking for an outlet since your boyhood. It is this that justifies your poetry-writing as a part of your sadhana.