Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Guidance in Writing Poetry

The Necessity and Nature of Inspiration [6]

Today another poem by Jyoti. I’m staggered by her speed in writing. She says lines, chanda, simply drop down, and she jots them down. She feels as if somebody is writing through her.

But that is how inspiration always comes when the way is clear and the mind sufficiently passive. Something drops or pours down; somebody writes through you.

I don’t know that by one’s mind one can write such things. What do you say?

Not possible. There would be something artificial or made up in them if it were the mind that did it.

How has she opened to the mystic plane? Something akin to her nature or one just opens?

It may be either.

Even when a thing drops down, isn’t it rather risky to accept it as it comes, specially the chanda part of it?

If anything is defective, it can be only by a mistake in the transcription.

Does the chanda also come down with inspiration or has one to change it afterwards?

Yes, it comes and is usually faultless — if the mind is passive and the source a high, deep or true one. Of course metre as the Supraphysicals understand it!

I shall illustrate my point. Jyoti says she sometimes rejects lines because she doesn’t understand their meaning. But since they repeatedly throw themselves on her, she accepts them. When the poem is completed the meaning becomes clear.

The mind ought to be quiet till all is written. Afterwards one can look and see if there is anything to be altered.

27 July 1936