Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

2. Art and Literature

Literary Activity and Yoga

I have been thinking whether I would not profit more by spending the time I use for writing in doing meditation instead. Has the writing work any spiritual value?

No present value spiritually – it may have a mental value. It is the same with the work – it has a value of moral training, discipline, obedience, acceptance of work for the Mother. The spiritual value and result come afterwards when the consciousness in the vital opens upward. So with the mental work. It is a preparation. If you cannot yet do it with the true spiritual consciousness, it, the work as well as the mental occupation, must be done with the right mental or vital will in it.

I should like to be a literary man. Do you approve?

It depends upon what kind of “literary man” you want to be, ordinary or yogic.

A literary man is one who loves literature and literary activity for its own sake. A Yogic “literary” man is not a literary man at all, but one who writes only what the inner will and Word wants to express. He is a channel  and an instrument of something greater than his own literary personality.

14.05.1934