Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1936

Letter ID: 1673

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

July 11, 1936

The trouble is that I have no definite time for working at night, but usually it’s at 9 p.m. Suppose when I intend to write poetry, I inform you along with the report and wait for the Force from 9 o’clock, wouldn’t that be better?

I don’t know that it would. It might work like that if I were always free to concentrate on particular things at a particular time; but that does not happen.

Doesn’t your pressure work itself out or does it take a long time? Do you think if you put the Force at an exact time, say 9 p.m., it has a greater chance of immediate success?

One can’t make a rule like that. There is nothing more variable than the way the Force acts.

J was rather discouraged by a fall from her previous height and said there is no use then writing or labouring so much.

She can’t expect to succeed equally every time. No poet does. I have tried to explain that to her.

She says she also feels an urge for writing novels and does not know how to run two horses together. Is it possible to work part of the day on novel and part on poetry?

It is quite possible to do it if one accustoms oneself to do it. But I suppose she gets absorbed in the novel or concentrated in the effort of poetry and the energy refuses to divert itself or gets disturbed if it is.