Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1861

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

February 25, 1937

You spoke about a “formula” yesterday. If you could give it, we could aspire for it and get quick results.

There is no formula – these things are not done by formulas. It is the thing that you want for your poetry that you have to make precise in your perception – and get it.

Or do you mean that one should first aspire for harmony, when that is established then depth, images, etc.?

Harmony certainly, and as much depth as possible and the right images and language giving the thing to be expressed as powerfully built and living a form as possible. But I am not aware that there is any fixed order like that in their coming.

You say sometimes images are forced – How to understand that? Inner feeling?

One can surely feel that if one tries.

My inner vision didn’t tell me that “the book of the Ocean” was a forced image, nor did it tell me that the poem was not cogent enough...

Well then, the inner vision or the subtle sense of these things has to be developed till it is capable of feeling and seeing these differences.

I realise however that all this will take time to develop. Meanwhile one has to stumble, make mistakes and sometimes have good luck.

If one can’t yet see one’s way, one has to feel, if not by experiment.