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
On Poems Published in Ahana and Other Poems

On a Word in In the Moonlight

What is the meaning of the word “ground” in these two lines from your poem In the Moonlight? —

... Are Nature’s bye-laws merely, meant to ground

A grandiose freedom building peace by strife.

Does “ground” mean “crush”?

“Ground” means here not to crush, but to make a ground or foundation for the freedom. What Science calls laws of Nature are not the absolute or principal laws of existence, but only minor rules meant to build up a material basis for the life of the Spirit in the body. On that has to be erected in the end, not a rule of material Law, but an immortal Liberty — not law of Nature, but freedom of the Spirit. The strife of forces which is regulated by these minor laws of Nature is only the battle through which man has to win the peace of Spirit. This is the sense.

February 1929