Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)

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What you write about Sri Aurobindo's poem, "The Death of a God" (p. 598 of Collected Poems), calls for serious consideration. You say:

 

"Am I allowed to ask from you a 'Clear Ray' {'Amal Kiran') to bring some light into a dull corner of my heart? See, every time I read 'The Death of a God' I cannot avoid the feeling of listening to the voice of someone who is not only recognising his own defeat but even his own giving up the fight. Of course, I know that all this is by nature strange to Sri Aurobindo, but I fail to find in the poem something deeper, even something different. When did Sri Aurobindo write this piece full of pain and greyness in which one misses so much his natural joy and azure? What kind of tremendous crisis was he going through when he wrote it? And, finally, what does it mean? Is it the song of the hopelessness of this earth 'abandoned in the hollow gulfs'... for ever? Your Ray will be really a remedy for this broken corner of my heart."

 

The suggestions you are prompted to read in the poem appear to be most unlikely, if at all ever possible, at the date at which it was composed. As far as I can make out, the time was somewhere in the late 'thirties or early 'forties when the veriest shadow of failure seemed out of the question. Here I think we have to bear in mind that poetry - even lyrical poetry - can be "dramatic", the working out of a theme without any implication for the author's life. Of course, the way the theme is worked out depends on the author's temperament and style of imagination: they determine what particular note is stressed. Somebody wanted to trace biographical details in the love-poems in Sri Aurobindo's earliest collection, Songs to Myrtitla, which contained compositions during his stay in England. The love-poems mention two specific girl-names: "Edith" and "Estelle". But he remarked that a poet does not write always from his Life-experience: his imagination can act creatively. In fact, even poems based on

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actual occasions have a play of the imagination taking the theme further in significance or adding new particulars to complete the posture of reality. I recollect that I myself, while looking at some of these early poems in the course of my first article on Sri Aurobindo's poetical work, "Sri Aurobindo - the Poet", read in two or three pieces the poet's depression and sense of frustration. Sri Aurobindo pulled me up, warning me against believing that everything a poet writes points to his own life-situation instead of a state it took his fancy to conjure up, develop and express. The expression should not be regarded as "false". To avoid "falseness" in poetry, one requires not truth of personal experience but what may be termed "artistic sincerity". The imagination may be aroused by something happening yet not necessarily to the writer himself. "Artistic sincerity" consists in putting one's mind sympathetically in tune with the theme in hand and drawing upon one's inner intuitive self who is in touch with the sources of inspiration so that the theme is treated with the right rhythmic response of vision and feeling and thought, which gathers what I may call associative lights on the subject. The archetypal practitioner of such sincerity is Shakespeare the "myriad-minded" dramatist, the creator par excellence of varied character and mood and attitude and circumstance by an ever alert sensitive imagination, Sri Aurobindo himself has been an able playwright with at least three productions which rank rather high in their own genres: the richly dynamic Perseus the Deliverer, the many-shaded complex of romance and comedy that is The Viziers of Bassora and the psychologically subtle Eric with its shifting interaction of hidden motives.

 

So it is possible that Sri Aurobindo was not writing prophetically in "The Death of a God" - or, if any streak of prophecy was there, it bore only on what might take place in a certain context of world-conditions. I believe that this poem is an intense dramatic creation in three vivid stanzas. Balancing it but with a more real life-contact and personal immediacy is "A Strong Son of Lightning" (p. 595 of Collected Poems) with

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again three stanzas. Here is an exultant and not a despondent picture. A play not exactly of despondency but of a painful fortitude answering to an actual life-situation is to be seen in the sonnet "In the Battle" which ends:

 

All around me now the Titan forces press;

This world is theirs, they hold its days in fee;

I am full of wounds and the fight merciless.

Is it not yet Thy hour of victory?

Even as Thou wilt! What still to Fate Thou owest,

OAncient of the worlds, Thou knowest, Thou knowest.

A corresponding statement of experience faces us in part of "A God's Labour":

My gaping wounds are a thousand and one

And the Titan kings assail, But I cannot rest till my task is done

And wrought the eternal will.

How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!

"Thy hope is Chimera's head Painting the sky with its fiery stain;

Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead"....

But the god is there in my mortal breast

Who wrestles with error and fate And tramples a road through mire and waste

For the nameless Immaculate.

The last four lines remind us of the sonnet "The Pilgrim of the Night", whose beginning and ending run:

Imade an assignation with the Night;

In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous:

In my breast carrying God's deathless light

I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo....

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I walk by the chill wave through the dull slime

And still that weary journeying knows no end;

Lost is the lustrous godhead beyond Time,

There comes no voice of the celestial Friend,

And yet I know my footprints' track shall be

A pathway towards Immortality.

 

In this sonnet and in "A God's Labour" the note of hope is struck in spite of the difficulties envisaged. Though in the latter there is the hint that the labouring God's work would fail if death occurred, this bit of wishful thinking by the hostile forces is not openly accepted and we get the impression that anyhow the task undertaken will be fulfilled: physical death need not bar the final victory, but the expectation is that after a little while - "a little more" - "the new life" will be initiated. Nowhere except in "The Death of a God" is the prospect of failure entertained.

 

The poem which the Mother declared to be "very sad" is "Is This the End?", written on 3.6.1945. Barring "Silence is All", which is dated 14.1.1946, this is the last short piece from Sri Aurobindo's pen which is securely dated. The sonnet "The Inner Fields" is given a later date - 14.3.1947 - but there is a question-mark against these figures. Why did the Mother call "Is This the End?" an expression of sadness? No doubt, up to stanza 6, everything is said to terminate - even the finest and most lovable features of life dissolve. Then in this stanza comes the culminating point:

 

One in the mind who planned and willed and thought,

Worked to reshape earth's fate,

One in the heart who loved and yearned and hoped,

Does he too end?

 

The next two stanzas which take up the question are somewhat of a paradox:

 

The Immortal in the mortal is his Name;

An artist Godhead here

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Ever remoulds himself in diviner shapes,

Unwilling to cease

Till all is done for which the stars were made,

Till the heart discovers God

And the soul knows itself. And even then

There is no end.

What is the exact import of the concluding phrase? Evidently, for "The Immortal", there can be no termination. And the word "cease" in line 4 cannot mean the "end" bemoaned in the preceding five stanzas. It has the sense of "stop". And here the implication is that this "artist Godhead" will achieve his aim - the aim "for which the stars were made", namely, the heart's discovery of God and the soul's knowledge of itself, and as a result there will be an "end" but on a note of triumph and not with a cry of despair. So we have a paradox in me theme or. ending. However, a futher shade unflods in the concluding phrase. The very paradox is turned topsy turvy. The spiritual achievement spoken of as a consummating and not a frustrating end is now denied. Can we read sadness here as if a sense of still further labour were conveyed like a regret - like a lament that still more and more light has to be toiled after? I am inclined to read exultation - Sri Aurobindo laughing at the old compelled terminations and victoriously declaring that "the Immortal in the mortal" is not bound to halt anywhere - not even where the apparent goal of the cosmic scheme has been reached: peak beyond peak shines out for a further manifesto of mastery,

 

For the Divine is no fixed paradise

But truth beyond great truth,

as Amal Kiran says in a sonnet.

 

I hope you are not tired out by my own endless-seeming reflections apropos of your remarks on "The Death of a God". Looking at the theme of the Divine's disappearance in this poem and at the theme of

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Light was born in a womb and thunder's force filled a

human frame,

 

which animates "A Strong Son of Lightning", I am tempted to quote a little piece of mine which is not in any grand style yet has a quality of its own and is relevant to the subject of a divine being's advent and departure. It weaves both the events into one whole of spiritual effectiveness. Here it is:

A SON OF GOD

 

From heaven you came -

Your soul a word

Of airy flame,

As though the white

Wings of a bird

No man had seen brought rumour of strange light.

Mortal you went;

Your passage grew

Within life's veil a rent

Where suddenly broke

The gold sun through -

And out of every heart a god awoke!

 

(5.8.1937)

 

Sri Aurobindo's comment was: "An admirable poem with a very strong point or double point of significance."

 

(9.2.1991) .

 

A Corrective Letter to Amal Kiran

 

Apropos your comments in "Life - Poetry - Yoga" on Sri Aurobindo's poem "Is this the end?" in Mother India (December '92) I have not understood why you have called the last two stanzas a paradox. To me it appears that the poem rises from stanza to stanza until it declares in the last one that

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even after the 'heart discovers God and the soul knows itself there is no end; that is to say, then begin the splendours of divine manifestation ("Our Yoga starts where others end").

 

I do not think that even up to stanza 6 'everything is said to terminate' as you have put it. Sri Aurobindo of course describes the external fact of death vividly, but his very question "Is this the end?" appearing in every stanza is rhetorical, in the sense that the answer to the question is implied in the question itself, namely "this is not the end". So even in the first four stanzas I cannot find sadness but exultation, because of the hidden indication that what appears as death is not truly the end. This idea-substance becomes clearer and clearer as the poem proceeds and reaches its climax in the last stanza, where even the purpose of creation is hinted at.

 

How are we then to take the Mother's remark 'very sad' (as quoted by you) on this poem? Perhaps we forget too often the Mother's injunction: "Beware of what is repeated to you in my name - the spirit in which it is said is lost!"

 

*

 

As regards "The Death of a God" I agree with you that what is described need not be the poet's own inner state. This, however, is not a solitary example among Sri Aurobindo's poems. The poem "The Dream Boat" which is also written in a similar vein gives a poetic account of an inner tragedy, which I am told is quite common among seekers.

 

5.11.92

AG. Savardekar

 

Amal Kiran's Comment

 

Thank you for your fine letter. You have opened a prospect which I now consider to be the right one. Congratulations! But the "exultation" you speak of is rather subtle in the four

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opening stanzas. Only from the fifth onward the real mood can be seen to show itself increasingly, and the closing words of the poem

 

and even then

There is no end -

 

reveal clearly the leitmotif, the positive theme present in some form or other throughout.

 

On August 8 when a friend who had wheelchaired me to the beach-road was bringing me back home at about 6.30 p.m., we narrowly escaped a very serious accident. True, we were on the wrong side of the road, but that need not implicate us justifiably in a mishap. Besides, we were very close to the kerb and therefore comparatively safe. A taxi came from the opposite direction and seemed to bear down upon us. Just by a hair's breadth it missed us. It went past almost grazing my wheelchair. My friend shouted and the car stopped a few yards behind us. He rushed to the driver and caught him by the arm. In the meantime several people, including some Ashramites, rushed to the spot. I turned my wheelchair round to see what was going on. A man came out of the car and said to me a number of times, "Excuse us," and shook my hand. I said, "All right."

 

If the taxi had not narrowly missed me, it would have caught me in an absolutely defenceless position. What chance had a wheelchair against a moving car? The wheelchair would have been violently knocked off and I with it. My friend too would have been flung away. I, because of my inability to move and instinctively manoeuvre as would an able-bodied person, would have been helplessly thrown down or aside with sufficient force to break my limbs and possibly kill me. Both my friend and I would have had to be hospitalised. The only good feature of the situation was that the Ashram Nursing Home was close by on the other side of the road.

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One of the Ashramites who had rushed to our help said to me the next day that he had witnessed the whole affair and surely it was the Mother's Grace that had made the car miss me by the fraction of an inch. No doubt he is right, but I have been asking myself why the terrible danger had at all come about and what might be the condition under which the Grace worked so successfully. Two points have struck me.

 

One is a strange soliloquy I had in the course of that very day. I had said to myself: "Inner things are not moving to my satisfaction. I am not able to give myself to the Divine as much as I would wish. What then is the use of hanging on to life? Better to pass away than prolong an inadequate sadhana." The discontent was deep. But after a minute or two something within told me: "Carry on in whatever way is possible. The inner flame will shoot up as before. In the meantime occupy yourself with various side-interests. Are you sure you are in a state of lack? Be humble. Do not scorn small mercies. What you term 'small mercies' may be torrential downpours for others. Let no form of death-wish persist." I replied to the voice: "I agree. I want to go on living."

 

What took place the same day in the evening seems to be a play of the opposite forces of death and life. The strong negative element in my consciousness gave a chance to such circumstances as would put me in deadly peril. But the positive end to the soliloquy appears to have been responsible for the narrow escape. It created the condition for the Mother's power to act in the nick of time.

 

My introspection has laid bare another factor too which would make for that power's spectacular success. I remembered that I was completely calm in the face of the danger. Not the slightest tremor was there. With unperturbed eyes I watched the car about to bear down on me and in the fraction of an instant miss me by a sort of miracle. Against the rushing monster was pitted a mass of utter peace. Even the flicker of an idea that there was going to be an accident was not present. I did not consciously appeal to the Divine for help, but I know that at all times something deep down in me is always open

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and the presence of the Divine is never far. Of course, in spite of the luminous proximity in some degree or other, one's spells of outer unconsciousness could let in the harmful agencies. That is why I had my femur-fracture on October 15 last year and yet under the peculiar circumstance that the ill-luck came at an hour when immediate assistance could be had. The friend who was coming every day to look after me, help me in my work and manage my food was on the spot. There could not have been a more auspicious time for the ill-omened event! Simultaneously with my failure to keep my wits about me was the action of the Grace. But now on August 8, though a wrong condition during the morning gave ground to the Hostile Forces to attack, there was along with the morning's ultimate stand against them the most naturally cooperative condition - absolute tranquillity - under which the Mother's protection could have most effect.

 

Perhaps a stricter analysis of the event would conclude that the actual prevention of the accident was due to the total peace. The positive attitude at the end of the morning's soliloquy could not have prevented the accident: it could only have ensured that the accident would not prove fatal. I would certainly live but with some damage - probably a good deal of it because of the heavy odds against me. At most we might say that the positive attitude helped the total peace to be so entirely an instrument of the Mother's saviour action.

 

I have always felt that peace is also a secret power, a silent incognito pressure on things. Furthermore, it could be a wide receptor, an unmoving holder and a smooth transmitter of the Divine's descending riches of light, knowledge, bliss, love and that charming omnipotence we call Grace.

 

(11.8.1992)

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