Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1937

Letter ID: 1942

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

May 17, 1937

You said [9.5.37]: “... For overhead poetry to come with a faultless rush one must be very very”, and left the sentence unfinished. Is it “very very Sri Aurobindo-like”?

But I am not aware that I write overhead poetry with a rush.

Everybody is aspiring to write from the overhead plane, so why not I? Possible?

Maybe.

If one can write all from the highest plane, i.e. Overmind and Supermind plane – as you have done in Savitri, is it evidently going to be greater poetry than any other poetry?

Nobody ever spoke of Supermind plane poetry. Is Savitri all from overhead plane? I don’t know.

... You lay down certain features of overhead poetry, e.g. greater depth and height of spiritual vision, inner life and experience and character of rhythm and expression. But it won’t necessarily outshine Shakespeare in poetic excellence.

Obviously if properly done it would have a deeper and rarer substance, but would not be necessarily greater in poetic excellence.

You say also that for overhead poetry technique, it must be the right word and no other in the right place, right sounds and no others in a design of sound that cannot be changed even a little. Well, is that not what is called sheer inevitability which is the sole criterion of highest poetry?

Yes, but mental and vital poetry can be inevitable also. Only in O.P. there must be a Tightness throughout which is not the case elsewhere – for without this inevitability it is no longer fully O.P., while without this sustained inevitability there can be fine mental and vital poetry. But practically that means O.P. comes usually by bits only, not in a mass.

You may say that in overhead poetry expression of spiritual vision is more important. True, but why can’t it be clothed in as fine poetry as in the case of Shakespeare? The highest source of Inspiration will surely bring in all the characteristics of highest poetry, no?

It can, but it is more difficult to get. It can be as fine poetry as Shakespeare’s if there is the equal genius, but it needn’t by the fact of being O.P. become finer.

Your Bird of Fire which I take as overhead poetry, is full of excellent poetry.

Is it?

Nobody said that O.P. could not be excellent poetry.

If one could write like that, is there not going to be a greater creation in all respects?

Maybe; it has to be seen.

... I suppose all spiritual poetry does not corne from overhead planes.

No, it may come from the spiritualised mind or vital.

I don’t see really why overhead poetry will only excel in expressing spiritual things and not also excel in a superior form than the lower plane poetry.

It may perhaps if the floodgates are fully opened.

Could you enlighten me on your overhead and underhead poetry?

In what way?

In Rajani’s report, you seem to make ++ separate from 2.5%. It is not so.

Not at all, I simply wanted to know exactly what 2.5 indicated, if anything.

We examine chemically first a sample of urine, i.e. by chemical reagents, which is called qualitative test. You ought to know that from your English Public School chemistry, Sir!

Never learned a word of chemistry or any damned science in my school. My school, sir, was too aristocratic for such plebeian things.

Good Lord, the fellow is harbouring all sorts of organisms! Of course, it is in a way expected, for diabetes diminishes resistance to infection. But he is, I gather, coming to supramental treatment soon! Everything clear now?... He doesn’t seem to be taking Insulin treatment.

The Civil Surgeon Fisher who fished him into the hospital, talked vaguely of a possibility of Insulin in the future if the examination proved the necessity, but the new civil Surgeon Kapur who is making him caper out of hospital, positively forbids the use of Insulin. So!