Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

2. Art and Literature

Poetic Inspiration and Yoga

Have I any strand of yogic seeking in me? I am writing poetry, but not getting love and peace. Even the thrill of joy that others get is missing, and I suspect it won't satisfy even if it comes. I say to myself, “It is not this, not this that I want. Something deep, great and wide is what I am after.”

And yet you say there is no strand of yogic seeking in you anywhere?

Neti, neti with this longing for something deep and great in the nature of Ananda filling the being and the vairagya for anything less (nalpe sukham asti, bhumaiva sukhamasti) is the very nature of the yogic push and impulse, at least according to the Vedantic line.

Poetry does not give love and peace, it gives Ananda, intense but not wide or lasting.

Your mind has obstructed the free flow of the poetry, but what it has obstructed more is the real peace and Ananda that is “deep, great and wide”. A quiet mind turned towards the bhuma is what you need.

Along with neti neti, there is also longing of the vital! How to trust this vairagya then?

That is another part of your vital....

Your argument is that because the yogic strand is not the whole of the nature, it cannot be real. This is rather illogical. The yogic strand is always in the beginning a strand, a movement or impulsion from one part  of the nature, however veiled or small. It grows afterwards, slowly or quickly, according to people and circumstances or the rest.

28.07.1936