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The therapies you are following strike me as effective. The doctor has full faith in them and you must do the same. But not only is perseverance required: patience too is to be practised. For, while perseverance makes for the active dedicated drive of the mind towards the end in view, patience stands for a certain quietude in the being, rendering it receptive in its depth and helping to set right the jangle of the nerves.
Do not look upon the disease as exclusively your enemy. It has come for a purpose - and that purpose you have yourself intuited: "I must confess that by this disease my Sadhana has got such an intensity as I would never have reached without it" This does not mean that you should ask to be more and more ill in order to feel the Mother's Force increasingly. It only means that She stands behind everything and sometimes makes use of abnormal circumstances to find short-cuts to us.
Last night, during my sleep, I was for hours in the Mother's presence and the atmosphere of Her beauty and serenity and infinite graciousness is all around me still. So your letter reached me at a time when, if ever I can be Her instrument, I
Don't let yourself be disturbed by the difficulties you have with your sleep. Invoke a sense of restfulness. To worry about not being able to sleep properly is worse than being sleepless.
(1.8.87)
Your letter of the 20th August brought me great joy, for it connected me instantly with your inner being - a being deep,
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wide, clear, intense, from whose higher, mysterious, awaiting reaches came the sleep-vision you have written of. The powerful yet limpid blue sky was surely the overhead consciousness, leaning down in all its secret majesty to your soul - a glorious night connecting and communicating with your dream-depths, your psychic centre. The immediate overhead plane was what Sri Aurobindo has called the Higher Mind, the first link between our normal self and the levels of existence that are above it. The deep blue colour is indicative of this plane and the thin white-blue border is the sign of the planes beyond it pressing to break through. But what has somehow broken through, on however small a scale, is a glint from the highest - Sri Aurobindo's and the Mother's supramental light - as shown by the golden crescent on one side of the sky and a golden star on the opposite side. There cannot be a greater promise of a sweet and profound future. The crescent bears in its arms the gift of the Mother's healing bliss and the star symbolises intuitive knowledge, bringing to you as a counterpart from Sri Aurobindo the boon of spiritual insight, the truth-touch that removes all distortions, inner or outer. Surely with such heavenly hints of the divine presence watching over you there can be no doubt that you will come smiling through whatever ailment has been troubling you. Try to live as much as possible in the memory of this vision.
(4.9.1987)
As regards your balance-sheet of plus and minus points, the minus ones indicating what you have lost strike me as very promising, they are plus points in disguise, empty spaces waiting or calling for touches from beyond our humanity. You are on the ambiguous, borderline of a new life without quite knowing it. When one is on the spiritual path, the falling away of old movements without new ones taking their place are not really losses. The succession of them is no mere piling of negatives. The result of the adding up of subtrac-
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tion-symptoms may prove unconsciously to be like the music of Browning's Abt Vogler: out of two notes there may be made not a third but a star! When the minuses reach a peak point a sudden surprising break away from the ordinary life may occur. A small significant sign seems to be present in your falling into a common misuse of a word. You write: "My disinterest in routine work." What you feel is a certain absence of something that was habitual and you intend to express your non-interest, your uninterested state. But the soul within has made your pen slip to show the underlying truth waiting to emerge. What is about to develop is a sustained disinterestedness, a continuous exceeding of the personal element in the work, a preparation for a consecration of it to the Divine. You are on the verge of getting out of the small self which was there whether you enjoyed doing your job or felt it to be bothersome. To pass into "disinterest" across a seeming no-man's land will be a great step forward, a move into a divine distance between yourself as you were and the true You.
(27.3.1986)
I have read of the recent chapters of your "sad" story. I say "sad" from the external point of view, but from the viewpoint of the soul there is nothing sad or glad: everything can be an occasion for a step forward on its journey towards the Divine. Sri Aurobindo has written: "The psychic being in us takes its account even of the most perverse or contrary as well as of its more benign experiences and grows by the rejection of them or acceptance: it extracts a divine meaning and use from our most poignant sufferings, difficulties, misfortunes." To realise this alchemy of the soul we have to be in contact with the alchemist and then the outer self in us will be pervaded more and more by the psychic consciousness which is like an unflickering flame burning ever upward in a windless place, a flame which can bring to the common human heart of us a warmth of self-existent happiness, a
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A mighty Guidance leads us still through all.
(23.5.1986)
As your letter introduces an important literary subject I feel inclined to reply at once and at some length.
The subject is a little complicated. First of all, there is the sense of a piece of writing being one's very own. Here one does not consider the quality of the piece. Here the individuality of the writer is the main concern. But surely the writing has to be as good as possible? Then the sense of authenticity comes in. There are two shades in this matter. To begin with: what one had in mind, what one wanted to mean makes the thing authentic but one can convey a certain meaning in either a crude or a refined way. Now the sense of form enters the scene. The writer has to be some kind of artist - at least a good word-combiner - and aim at clarity and
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order. Clarity and order are the presiding deities of prose. But there are surface thoughts and there are depth thoughts. The latter have an element of subtlety and a greater art is required to give them authentic expression. The more subtle they are the more insight one must have into what exactly is trying to get expressed. The writer has to question himself and develop an intuitive feeling. This is particularly necessary when one writes poetry - even free verse; for all poetry has delicate shades, profound gleams, wider bearings than the actual subject's significance. One has to get at them in order to give one's piece its full and final shape. And, of course, one has to be sensitive to the sound-values of words as well as to the relative positions of the words. Now, the question is how far the writer is accustomed to do the probing I speak of - the requisite inward-looking habit.
Not all poets develop it. Unless it is developed, one gets involved only in the immediate thoughts one has had while writing. What I have tried to do with your father's poem God is to get at the inspiration behind it and the various implications it must have had. Take the first line:
Every flower, every tear, every smile....
What is "flower" doing here? The transition to the next items is sudden and arbitrary. "Tear" and "smile" are antithetical and suggest that in even opposites God is present since He is everywhere in the world, whether openly or secretely. Something linked to "flower" is missing - and without it the item is unsupported in this first line. It stands as a pretty feature without poetic logic. Poetry should always have both magic and logic, not separately but playing into each other or closely linked. Here, to balance a God-phenomenon in Nature to the God-phenomenon in human life, I proposed "Every flower, every thorn" to go with "every smile, every tear". An alternative version could be:
Every flower, every dewdrop.
Every smile, every tear....
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Instead of a balance of antitheses, a balance of analogies is introduced. Both the movements can be read in the original inspiration. We may say that now the magic and logic are fused, while in the other version they stood close and jointly contributed to the poem's communication. My intention in making what seem like corrections is really to get into touch with your father's inspiration-source and catch its true secret urge.
I am not a schoolmaster. From years of learning from Sri Aurobindo what the heart and art of poetry are, I try to help my brothers-in-verse. If my attempt is not seen in the light in which I would request them to see it, I am not disappointed nor am I annoyed. It is natural, as you say, that "they express their ideas in the words they think are most appropriate" and so "in such cases it becomes very difficult to make them agree to any change in their creation". Of course, to alter things in toto or in great measure is hardly to help a writer: what one should endeavour to do is just to suggest alterations which would make the writer's own theme and expression reach complete blossoming so that the writer does not feel replaced but taken further along his own line and fulfilled in his true self.
I have referred to Sri Aurobindo as my teacher in poetry. I may give you an example of his fine perception - an example apropos of your reference to a writer's own sense of appropriate wording. Sometimes a writer trying to become more appropriate in his words can come quite a cropper. Here's a sonnet I wrote long ago - 27.8.1936:
Puma
Men call thee bare because they fear thy light.
The dazzle of far chastity that brings
A joy but with the whole heart void of things
Dear to brief clay; yet grows thy simple white
The virgin mother of each passionate tone,
Save for the mind that will not follow fast
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The visionary winging of thy Vast
Above the narrow blisses earth has known.
He whose desire from mortal love is freed
Catches the treasure veiled in thy pure speed
And, from the bare white, views a luxury burst:
Truth-pulsing gold to which the sun were black,
A griefless carmine that all roses lack,
One ample azure brimming every thirst!
Sri Aurobindo commented: "A very fine sonnet in all respects." But the next day I got it into my head to do what Shakespeare considered "wasteful and ridiculous excess" -namely, "to gild refined gold , to paint the lily... or add another hue to the rainbow." I wrote: "I am sorry to have sent that rather raw version of my sonnet. Here is a more coherent one." The latter suggested lines 4-10 to run:
...yet grows thy virgin white
The mystic mother of each passionate tone,
Save for the mind that will not dare to cast
All life within thy visionary Vast
Whoso from mortal love has sought release
Attains the treasure locked in thy pure peace...
Sri Aurobindo passed over the two concluding lines' variation but exploded in the margin of the first four: "Man alive! The virgin mother was magnificent, and you kick her out! And the two last lines in their original form were the finest in the poem and you reduce them to something good but not above the ordinary!! Beware of the meddling correcting mind.'' I believe the lines Sri Aurobindo refers to as "the two last" are the ones immediately following those which the new version has modified. They bring the octave to its close.
Sri Aurobindo's vehement warning is against the merely
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critical intelligence's interference with inspiration, trying to get things mentally precise instead of letting an intuitive inevitability have its way. Another example of its interference I remember. Something that had come out perfect in a poem called "Singers of the Spirit" I attempted to modify under a false idea of communicative poetic power. Thus I changed
Our tones of fathomless joy instil
A taste of the Ineffable
to
With tones of fathomless joy we instil
A taste of the Ineffable,
and the deeply moving "psychic cry" went out of the opening line and along with it suggestive spontaneity too, giving place to a thought-out statement with an obvious turn.
Of course, when from one's profundities one can raise the level of a line to a finer plane the poet has the right to interfere with his own production. Now one moment of inspiration is substituted by another which is greater. Thus Sri Aurobindo transformed an early Savitri-line
Concealed because too brilliant for our sight
to one graver, more directly visual in a mystic sense:
Veiled by the Ray no mortal eye can bear.
(18.3.1986)
It is too much of an honour to me that I should be requested to give my views on the subject you have chosen for your dissertation: "Mind Power in Military Application." I can
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only offer a few suggestions. I suppose the immediate importance of this power lies in gauging enemy plans and preparing to meet them and in being able to rise to the challenge of any sudden development on the battiefield. But to have the ability to do such things the mind has to be both keen and deep. Keenness can be acquired by training it on various problems, trying to get at the centre of each by tackling Its greatest difficulty first. Depth comes from the ability to hold one's mental faculties in voluntary silence, not exercising them but turning them inward, as it were, so that one tends to exceed the individual frame in which the intelligence is set and lay oneself open to what may be called the secret "universal mind'. Our mind is inclined to be active all the time: mastery of it consists partly in one's power to control this activity and turn the consciousness to a meditative posture in which it can be receptive to what is beyond it -
Lifted by intimations from the heights
And in the pauses of the building brain
Touched by the thoughts that skim the fathomless surge
Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores.
People generally do not believe that there is a greater mind than ours and that by coming into contact with it in one way or another we can have intuitions which go to the heart of a situation. Apart from the practice of the presence of such a wider inward potency, it would be a good thing always to draw back for a moment into a short silence before launching out on any scheme of action. All skill of the mind depends on how much it has been enriched not only by its employment but also by its being put at the service of a profound peace in the midst of life's vicissitudes. I believe that master-strategists and commanders like Napoleon could somehow tap resources above their own natural movements. Napoleon's victories were like little miracles as if he were an instrument of some superforce. Even against heavy odds he could make inspired moves to nullify them. And behind them all were
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his own fearless spirit and his faith in what he called his "star". His series of pitched battles ending in magnificent victories - Austerlitz, Ulm, Marengo, etc. - is known to all military students. But few remember what I consider his greatest triumph. It was won without a shot being fired.
You may know of his escape from Elba where he had been exiled after the contretemps he suffered at Leipzig where a number of nations combined to attack his depleted army returning from Russia. After his escape he marched with a handful of men towards France. The Bourbons had been restored to the French throne and the whole army was at the service of the new regime. A substantial contingent was sent to check Napoleon before he could approach Paris. It came in sight of his small group and made him out at the head of it. The soldiers were ordered to train their rifles on him and frighten him out of his supposedly hare-brained ambition to effect a coup. Napoleon, instead of being stopped, broke away from his group and kept striding towards the long line of rifle-ready troops against him. The soldiers watched the well-known figure in the three-cornered hat and long grey coat open in front along the whole body-length as if exposing it to their deadly aim. When he came within earshot of his old army he shouted: "Where is the Frenchman who will shoot his emperor?" That single cry was enough to turn the tables. The entire contingent rose as one man and throwing away its rifles ran frenziedly towards Napoleon, exclaiming "Vive l'empereur.'" The soldiers knelt down at his feet, catching his hands and kissing them. The tremendous personality and genius of the man who had started as "the Little Corporal" and become conqueror of all Western Europe achieved now his mightiest conquest. At the head of the very troops that had been sent to stop and capture him he marched on Paris.
The sequel is common knowledge. After a hundred days there was the confrontation at Waterloo - the British under Wellington and the Prussians under Blucher facing the returned terror of Europe. Napoleon lost the battle and there
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was rejoicing in England as if there had been a severe beating given to him. But what did Wellington himself have to say? His words are: "It was a damned near thing." Actually, up to the end nobody could have said what the issue would be.
I am tempted to go into the details of the battle to show that no fault of Napoleon's was responsible for his defeat. Unexpected circumstances undermined his masterly plan. Unforeseen accidents of Nature's "caprices" or of human folly can come in the way even of geniuses. But perhaps there was a decision by the Gods to check Napoleon who had so far been their instrument of progress in his defence of the France of the Revolution against the surrounding feudal remnants of the past. He seems to have overdone the "mission" he had been given and the time was ripe for a new turn of European affairs. If we do not take these factors into account, what we see in his life is a certain drawing upon invisible reserves of mind by a constant poise and an opening to "inspiration".
I don't know any specific books to recommend. One important study would be of how the minds of the great soldiers of history - from Alexander to MacArthur - worked. But possibly the main help would come from the sharpening and "poising" of your own mental faculty.
Have I been of any help to you by all the above remarks? Maybe some little urge has been communicated towards realising that, as Wordsworth says, "we are greater than we know" and that much can be done by getting into relation with the Unknown within and beyond us. We must let it raise to a climax of efficiency whatever gifts we ourselves possess of mentally coping with the challenge of events or, if we so like to phrase it, with the tests of the Unknown outside us.
(23.4.1988)
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