Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Poetry and Art
SABCL - Volume 27
Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
Inspiration, Effort, Development
Reading, Yogic Force and the Development of Style [2]
Methinks you are making just a little too much of
Yogic Force. Its potency as regards matters spiritual is undeniable, but for
artistic or intellectual things one can’t be so sure about its effectiveness.
Take Dilip’s case; one could very well say: “Why give credit to the Force? Had
he been as assiduous, sincere etc. elsewhere, he would have done just the same.”
Will you explain to me how Dilip who could not write a
single good poem and had no power over rhythm and metre before he came here,
suddenly, not after long “assiduous” efforts, blossomed into a poet, rhythmist
and metrist after he came here? Why was Tagore dumbfounded by the “lame man
throwing away his crutches and running freely” and surely on the paths of
rhythm? Why was it that I who never understood or cared for painting, suddenly
in a single hour by an opening of vision 
got the
eye to see and the mind of understanding about colour, line and design? How was
it that I who was unable to understand and follow a metaphysical argument and
whom a page of Kant or Hegel or Hume or even Berkeley left either dazed and
uncomprehending and fatigued or totally uninterested because I could not fathom
or follow, suddenly began writing pages of the stuff as soon as I started the
Arya and am now reputed to be a great philosopher? How is it that at a time
when I felt it difficult to produce more than a paragraph of prose from time to
time and more than a rare poem, short and laboured, perhaps one in two months,
suddenly after concentrating and practising Pranayama daily began to write pages
and pages in a single day and kept sufficient faculty to edit a big daily paper
and afterwards to write 60 pages of philosophy every month? Kindly reflect a
little and don’t talk facile nonsense. Even if a thing can be done in a moment
or a few days by Yoga which would ordinarily take a long, “assiduous, sincere
and earnest” cultivation, that would of itself show the power of the Yoga force.
But here a faculty that did not exist appears quickly and spontaneously or
impotence changes into highest potency or an obstructed talent changes with
equal rapidity into fluent and facile sovereignty. If you deny that evidence, no
evidence will convince you, because you are determined to think otherwise.
So about your style too, it is difficult to understand
how much the Force has contributed towards its perfection.
It may be difficult for you to understand, but it is
not difficult for me, since I have followed my own evolution from stage to stage
with a perfect vigilance and following up of the process. I have made no
endeavours in writing. I have simply left the higher Power to work and when it
did not work I made no efforts at all. It was in the old intellectual days that
I sometimes tried to force things, but not after I started the development of
poetry and prose by Yoga. Let me remind you also that when I was writing the
Arya and also since whenever I write these letters or replies, I never think
or seek for expressions or try to write in 
good
style; it is out of a silent mind that I write whatever comes ready-shaped from
above. Even when I correct, it is because the correction comes in the same way.
Where then is the place for even a slight endeavour or any room at all for “my
great endeavours”? Well?
By the way, please try to understand that the
supraintellectual (not the supramental only) is the field of a spontaneous
automatic action. To get it or to get yourself open to it needs efforts, but
once it acts there is no effort. Your grey matter does not easily open; it
closes up also too easily, so each time an effort has to be made, perhaps too
much effort — if your grey matter would sensibly accommodate itself to the
automatic flow there would not be the difficulty and the need of “assiduous,
earnest and sincere endeavour” each time. Methinks. Well?
I challenge your assertion that the Force is more
easily potent to produce spiritual results than mental (literary) results. It
seems to me the other way round. In my own case the first time I started Yoga,
Pranayama etc., I laboured 5 hours a day for a long time and concentrated and
struggled for five years without any least spiritual {{0}}result,[[N.B. When the
spiritual experiences did come, they were as unaccountable and automatic as — as
blazes.]] but poetry came like a river and prose like a flood and other things
too that were mental, vital or physical, not spiritual, richnesses and openings.
I have seen in many cases an activity of the mind in various directions as the
first or at least an early result. Why? Because there is less resistance, more
cooperation from the confounded lower members for these things than for a
psychic or a spiritual change. That is easy to understand at least. Well?
1 November 1935