Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

2. Art and Literature

Poetic Inspiration and Yoga

In regard to writing poetry, not only is my vital lazy but also my mind does not know precisely how to silence itself. This second point applies to X too. How then does he manage to receive from the Above?

The difference is that as his mind has opened to the Above, the Above can turn its activity into an activity of the inspiration; its quickness, energy, activity enable it to transcribe quickly, actively, energetically what comes into it from the Above. Of course if one day it becomes silent also, it may possibly become the channel of a still higher Inspiration.

Did X's vital become active because somehow he could more easily draw in the Inspiration?

X's vital strength is inborn, though it may not have at first been open to the poetic inspiration. When it did, it could leap at once with full energy and gave itself entirely to the flow.

Is silencing the mind to be done only at the time of writing?

Silencing the mind at the time of writing should be sufficient, even not silencing it but its falling quiet to receive.

One of my methods in composing is to try to find out the rhymes.

Just the thing you should not do. Let the rhyme come, don't begin dragging all sorts of rhymes in to see if they fit.

Do you want to say that if I have discovered some lines I must not think of the next lines, but try instead to keep absolutely silent?

That is the ideal way; but usually there is always an activity of the mind jumping up and trying to catch the inspiration. Sometimes the inspiration, the right one, comes in the midst of this futile jumping, sometimes it sweeps it aside and brings in the right thing, sometimes it asserts itself between two blunders, sometimes it waits till the noise quiets down. But even this jumping need not be a mental effort – it is often only a series of suggestions, the mind of itself seizing on one or eliminating another, not by laborious thinking and choice, but by a quiet series of perceptions. This is method No. 2. No. 3 is your Herculean way, quite the slowest and worst.

While one person breaks his head over a few lines, another composes three or four poems.

That is fluency, not necessarily inspiration; Southey used to write like that, I believe. But you don't call Southey an inspired poet, do you?

You once brought “the organisation of the Supermind in the physical consciousness” into the talk  about your poetic inspiration. What is the connection between the two?

Excuse me, it was you who brought in Overmind etc. in connection with my poetry and asked why having these things I had to write Savitri many times instead of pouring out 24,000 lines a day.

I have worked today from 1-30 to 6-15 p.m. – 5 hours! – and composed only 16 lines! Is this a sign of laziness?

But that is quite magnificent – 16 lines in one day, 3,5 lines an hour about! Remember that Virgil used only to write 9 lines a day. At this rate you will end by being twice as inspired and fluent as Virgil.

31.03.1936