Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 35

Fragment ID: 8579

Meeting with Vishnu Bhaskar Lele [4]

I don’t understand why Lele told you that because you are a poet, sadhana will be easy for you through poetry, or why you quote it either. Poetry is itself such a hard job and sadhana through poetry – well, the less said the better! Or perhaps he saw within your soul the Sri Aurobindo of future Supramental glory?

Because I told him I wanted to do Yoga in order to get a new inner Yogic consciousness for life and action, not for leaving life. So he said that. A poet writes from an inner source, not from the external mind, he is moved by inspiration to write, i.e. he writes what a greater Power writes through him. So the Yogi Karmachari has to act from an inner source, to derive his thoughts and movements from that, to be inspired and impelled by a greater Power which acts through him. He never said that sadhana will be easy for me through poetry. Where is the “through poetry” phrase? Poetry can be done as a part of sadhana and help the sadhana – but sadhana “through” poetry is a quite different matter.

23 May 1938