Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

2. Art and Literature

“Savitri”

We have been wondering why you should have to write and rewrite your poetry – for instance, Savitri ten or twelve times – when you have all the inspiration at your command and do not have to receive it with the difficulty that faces budding Yogis like us.

That is very simple. I used Savitri as a means of ascension. I began with it on a certain mental level, each time I could reach a higher level I rewrote from that level. Moreover I was particular – if part seemed to me to come from any lower levels I was not satisfied to leave it because it was good poetry. All had to be as far as possible of the same mint. In fact Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one's own yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative. I did not rewrite Rose of God or the sonnets except for two or three verbal alterations made at the moment.

If X could receive his inspiration without any necessity for rewriting, why not you?

So could I if I wrote every day and had nothing else to do and did not care what the level of inspiration was so long as I produced something exciting.

Do you have to rewrite because of some obstruction in the way of the inspiration?

The only obstruction is that I have no time to put myself constantly into* the poetic creative posture and if I write at all have to get out something in the intervals of quite another concentration.

With your silent consciousness it should be possible to draw from the highest planes with the least concentration.

The highest planes are not so accomodating as all that. If they were so, why should it be so difficult to bring down and organise the Supermind in the physical consciousness? What happy-go-lucky fancy-web-spinning ignoramuses you all are! You speak of silence, consciousness, overmental, supramental etc., as if they were so many electric buttons you have only to press and there you are. It may be one day but meanwhile I have to discover everything about the working of all possible modes of electricity, all the laws, possibilities, perils etc., construct modes of connection and communication, make the whole far-wiring system, try to find out how it can be made foolproof and all that in the course of a single lifetime. And I have to do it while my blessed disciples are firing off their gay or gloomy a priori reasonings at me from a position of entire irresponsibility and expecting me to divulge everything to them not in hints but at length. Lord God in omnibus!

29.03.1936