Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 2. 1938

Letter ID: 2078

Sri Aurobindo — Nirodbaran Talukdar

April 14, 1938

I hesitate to write in this high tone: “I am the Light of the One, Voice” etc. It sounds high and grand. Some don’t like this tone at all. D is one. They call it insincere. A poet-sadhak has no justification for using this tone?

If such poems are put as a claim, or vaunted as a personal experience of Yoga, they may be objected to on that ground. But a poet is not bound to confine himself to his personal experience. A poet writes from inspiration or from imagination or vision. Milton did not need to go to Heaven or Hell or the Garden of Eden before he wrote Paradise Lost. Are all D’s bhakti poems an exact transcription of his inner state? If so, he must be a wonderful Yogi and bhakta.