Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

2. Art and Literature

Poetic Inspiration and Yoga

Writing poetry as a result of yoga ought to spiritualise one.

If poetic progress meant a progress in the whole range of Yoga, X would be a great yogi by this time. The opening in poetry or any other part helps to prepare the general opening when it is done under the pressure of Yoga, but it is at first something special, like the opening of the subtle vision or subtle senses. It is the opening of a special capacity in the inner being.

I hope you understand my psychology and, if you do, give some answers, not mystic but mental.

It is quite easy to understand if one realises that the natural being is not of one piece but made up of parts or quantums or whatever one likes to call it. One part of your mind and vital has the need though not yet the push for the Divine and that need is being very prominent – another does not believe or hope for anything. One part of the mind resorts to poetry but cannot wake the vital enthusiasm, because the vital is besieged by the Man of Sorrows. Then there is the Man of Sorrows himself – in everything. Different parts of the mind take different sides and suggest opposite things according as they are pushed by one force  or another. As yet no resolution of the central being to put all that into harmony, expel what is to be expelled, change what is to be changed. I do not know whether you call that mystic or mental answers, but I can't give you any other that would be true.

08.08.1936