Letters on poetry and other forms of literature, on painting and the other arts, on beauty and aesthetics, and on their relation to the practice of yoga.
On Poetry Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Letters on poetry and other forms of literature, on painting and the other arts, on beauty and aesthetics, and on their relation to the practice of yoga. Most of these letters were written by Sri Aurobindo in the 1930 and 1940s to members of his ashram. Around one sixth of them were published during his lifetime; the rest were transcribed from his manuscripts after his passing. Many are being published for the first time in this volume.
THEME/S
That is the right consciousness, not to desire or to be attached to the possession of anything for oneself, but to take the universal beauty etc. for a spiritual selfless Ananda.
6 November 1933
There is nothing harmful in the thing [aspiration for beauty] itself—on the contrary to awake to the universal beauty and refinement of the Mahalakshmi force is good. It is not an expression of greed or lust—only into these things a perversion can always come if one allows it, as into the Mahakali experience there may come rajasic anger and violence, so here there may come vital passion for possession and enjoyment. One must look at the beauty as the artist does without desire of possession or vital enjoyment of the lower kind.
8 October 1933
Is it possible to get rid of vital impurities without getting rid of vital enjoyment?
How can that be done? The enjoyment you speak of is vital-physical, while beauty has to be enjoyed with the aesthetic sense—either human or divinised.
6 April 1933
It is usually a good rule for other inward things beside the appreciation of the beauty of Nature—to keep it for oneself or else to share it only with those who have the same sense or the same experience.
15 March 1934
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In regard to beauty in women, is there something inherent in the body that we call beautiful, a well-formed shape, physiognomy, harmony of movements, etc. It seems to most men it is colour + skin + physiognomy. But there are some women who do not have these in the body and yet are attractive. Is it something in their vital that gives them this beauty?
It is something vital in some cases, something psychic in others that gives a beauty which appears in the body but is not beauty of shape, colour or texture.
Often the vital and mental character of persons who have physical beauty is not good, sometimes it is even repulsive. Many would refuse to recognise it as beautiful.
If it is vital in its origin, it need not come from beauty of mind or character; it is something in the life-force which may go with a good character but also with a bad one.
Indians hardly appreciate the beauty of the Chinese or Japanese; like Europeans, they cannot appreciate beauty in Negroes. Many Asiatics could not appreciate the beauty of European models or actresses, who are so lacking in modesty according to their conceptions.
Modesty is not part of physical beauty, that is a mental-vital element. As for physical beauty, different races have different conceptions. Indians and Europeans like curves, Chinese detest them in a woman.
An intellectual would find beauty only in an intellectual woman; an emotional person would call a woman beautiful only if she has refined tender feelings; for a Gandhian a woman would be beautiful only if she spins eight hours a day or works for Harijans.
That has nothing to do with beauty in the ordinary sense as it is beauty of intellect or beauty of character or beauty of spinning and Harijanising.
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Perhaps at a certain stage of psychic development one could look at human beauty as one looks at beauty in cats or dogs—recognising the beauty without any attraction.
One can recognise and feel without any desire of possession or sexual feeling etc. That is how the artists look at beauty—they delight in it for its own sake.
Supposing people developed the faculty of seeing the layers below the skin, would not their whole conception of beauty crumble down?
Yes, probably, unless the mind reconstructed a new idea of it.
Does not the conception of beauty differ according to race, temperament and level of consciousness?
Yes.
Are not attractiveness and beauty different?
Is there nothing constant called "beauty"?
There are two kinds of beauty. There is that universal beauty which is seen by the inner eye, heard by the inner ear etc.—but the individual consciousness responds to some forms, not to others, according to its own mental, vital and physical reactions. There is also the aesthetic beauty which depends on a particular standard of harmony, but different race or individual consciousnesses form different standards of aesthetic harmony.
18 October 1935
Why should the pure sense of beauty have been so distorted by human beings as to be turned into desire for touch or sex?
It is part of the general degradation which things divine have
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been subjected to in the evolution out of the material Inconscience under the pressure of the Powers of the Ignorance.
Are there people who have not been affected by this vital impurity and who appreciate beauty in a subtle aesthetic way only?
Yes, certainly. Artists who have trained their mind to a purely aesthetic look at beauty and beautiful things—for one instance. There are many others also, who have a sufficiently developed refinement of the aesthetic sense not to associate it with the crude vital wish for possession, enjoyment or sensual contact.
The aesthetic and impersonal vision of things can develop into the sight of the Divine Beauty everywhere which is in its nature entirely pure.
19 April 1933
What is the difference between the artistic look and the vital look?
In the artistic look there is only the perception of beauty and the joy of it because it exists and one has seen and felt it. There is no desire to possess or enjoy in the vital way.
4 August 1933
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