Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 27

Fragment ID: 7220

Inspiration and Understanding [1]

Everything depends on the inspiration. But then I can’t change any line or word since I don’t understand what I am writing.

From your explanations you seem to understand all right. The question is about the inspiration itself. It is sometimes more successful, sometimes less – for various reasons. What one has to see is whether what has come through is quite satisfactory in language, image, harmonious building, poetic force. If not, one can call a farther inspiration to emend what is deficient. At first one allows the inspiration to come through without interference, to establish the habit of free flow. But that does not mean one must not afterwards alter or improve – only it should be done not by the mind but by a fresh and better inspiration. If in the course of writing itself, a correcting inspiration comes, that can be accepted – otherwise one does the perfecting afterwards.

23 February 1937