The letters reveal Nirod's unique relationship with his guru. The exchanges are suffused with a special humour.
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Nirodbaran's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo began in February 1933 and continued till November 1938, when Sri Aurobindo injured his leg and Nirod became one of his attendants. The entire correspondence, which was carried on in three separate notebooks according to topics - private, medical, and literary - is presented in chronological order, revealing the unique relationship Nirod enjoyed with his guru, replete with free and frank exchanges and liberal doses of humour. Covering a wide range of topics, both serious and light-hearted, these letters reveal the infinite care Sri Aurobindo devoted to the spiritual development of his disciple.
THEME/S
S is much better, feels happy. I forgot to write that jaundice usually takes 2-3 weeks.
So I understood, even a month.
N.P. is dying more of fear, and thinking if he does this or that the pain may come back!
That is why these things continue with him.
What about my private book or J's letters? Can't you send them?
Not as yet. Could not make up arrears.
Today X seemed quite sane. So you see, Sir, after all it is your help that pulled her up.
Of course as soon as you wrote I put the shower-bath on her.
[About J's novel:] If you say that she'd better follow what Y says, she is willing to do so. Her fury has toned down and she feels that after all there was nothing much to get upset about. The book belongs to the Mother.
Well, that is something.
I feel that Y would mind again if J did everything herself—and she won't be able to do it well. After all, Y has spent so much for the book, and he is determined to see that it brings a good sale...
You are quite right. Since Y has done everything about this book till now, it is better to let him finish. In future she can keep clear of any obligation to him, but here it will only create confusion and more trouble.
Another point—Y doesn't want J to send a copy of the book to Niren, for fear of criticism...
That is a point I cannot resolve.
July 1, 1936
For N—shall we try olive oil?
What for olive oil?
For his stomach-ache and constipation etc., yeast can be tried. It has been found very good in some cases.
Yeast ought to do him good, as he complains of weakness. You can have a try, before we plunge in R who is struggling with a difficult case just now. But I am afraid in N's body there is something that does not want to cure, for it finds itself more miserably interesting with constipation, ache and sciatica than Without it.
I send you Nishikanta's version of my Bengali poem. He has tried to keep as far as possible my words, but even then it can hardly be called mine.
My God! he has pummelled you into pieces and thrown away all but a few shreds. No, you can't call it yours. Perhaps you can label it, "Nirod after being devoured, assimilated and eliminated by Nishikanta."
Nishikanta has written so much that you can't do without tumbling into his influence.
Your own version, if it takes things from NK is still not NK but yourself.
July 3, 1936
Here is a poem—don't know if it is the outcome of your "shall try" or you didn't try at all?
Just gave a pressure or two, that's all.
Opinion?
Very beautiful.
I hope you won't disappoint me this week-end. I have waited long enough. One of J. B.'s letters must be answered. What?
Can't say—so many people waiting for an answer.
A flower for Chand.
Take from Nolini.
July 4, 1936
S's jaundice still seems to be the same. I propose to give him about half an ounce of mag. sulph. tomorrow.
Mother suggests that a small lavement (cold) should be given him daily until there is no bile. She doesn't think purgatives are much use for jaundice.
Please try to give one or two more "pressures" for poetry.
Shall try.
One answer to Jatin managed. Rest swimming on the wide wide sea.
July 5, 1936
I propose to give S, mag. sulph. not as purgation but to stimulate the bile flow from the liver. Any objection? However, I will do as Mother says.
No, you can give the mag. sulph.
Mother was suggesting from her own experience, and the instructions of Doctors in France. But probably it differs with cases and people.
July 6, 1936
[Morning]
I have no peace, no joy, no push for anything, and am physically an absolute rag. I wonder, after all, whether you have committed a mistake by telling me all that [an unpublished letter]; pardon my audacity. I doubt because I don't find any good result from it. Can you tell me why exactly you told me all that? Surely you must have had an end in view.
You asked for it yourself, nor was there anything much more than I had told you on a former occasion—only one actual case of the general proposition. If the old thing rose up so violently, as a result, it shows that it was there all the time in the subconscient coming secretly in the way of the progress and the continuity or return of such experiences as you had. It seems to me that it was as well that it should come up and you should deal with it consciously and directly. If you want the Divine and the inner life, the old vital moorings must be cut.
In short, I am thinking of going out somewhere for a month. I can only think of A at Bombay who may be willing to keep me.
That is 'D's proposition all over again! I have to spend a large part of the night writing letters to him so that he may not start for Cape Comorin and the Himalayas—now if you pile Bombay and A on these two ends of India, I for my part shall have to head for the Pacific Ocean.
I am feeling that the intimate personal contact you allowed me before—which is one of the big attractions—you are withdrawing. Perhaps I have committed some grave faults, or the necessity doesn't exist!
I don't know where you got that rubbishy idea. I have told you that I am preoccupied with the old mass of correspondence—(now + D) + many important and pressing answers to people which in spite of their pressingness I can't get written. That is why I have not sent you back your personal book, as I need a less occupied mind to discuss such intricate and difficult questions as you have put this time. There is no question of withdrawing anything or grave faults or cessation of any necessity. For heaven's sake, don't begin striking this other Dilipian chord!
[Evening]
... You say I should deal with it consciously and directly. But how?
I meant that you should fight it out.
... You say it is all D. In everything I do, you find D.
Because you say just the same things.
I didn't know at all that he has got it afresh—this idea of going away—perhaps over J's novel affair?
No, the reason he gives is just the same as yours...
But if you head for the Pacific, well, I suppose I have to be swayed and billowed into the Atlantic, at whatever cost! You write, "If you want the Divine..." That is the whole question. Do I really want the Divine? Have I come for Him?
I intended to write "If something in you wants the Divine," but dropped into the shorter form. Something must have wanted it, otherwise the things you write or experienced formerly would be meaningless. Parts of the mind which are uppermost now may not want, but that is so with most people.
It is not so much the retention of my book that gave me that idea. From your short answers and from a wrong intuition perhaps.
Short answers were due to the same cause.
But if you want to keep me here, do save me from this condition—no peace, no strength to fight, etc. Unless you save me unconditionally, I am doomed.
Quite ready.
Shivalingam has again had pain in the right ankle for the last 6 or 7 days. Thinking of trying Sod. Salicyl. injection; if that fails, then protein injection.
[No reply.]
Mahatma Gandhi says in an article: "... I hold that complete realisation is impossible in this embodied life. Nor is it necessary. A living immovable faith is all that is required for reaching the full spiritual height attainable by human beings..." Your opinion on the matter?
I do not know what Mahatma Gandhi means by complete realisation. If he means a realisation with nothing more to realise, no farther development possible, then I agree—I have myself spoken of farther divine progression, an infinite development. But the question is not that; the question is whether the Ignorance can be transcended, whether a complete essential realisation turning the consciousness from darkness to light, from an instrument of the Ignorance seeking for Knowledge into an instrument or rather a manifestation of Knowledge proceeding to greater Knowledge, Light enlarging, heightening into greater Light, is or is not possible. My view is that this conversion is not only possible, but inevitable in the spiritual evolution of the being here. The embodiment of life has nothing to do with it. This embodiment is not of life, but of consciousness and its energy of which life is only one phase or force. As life has developed mind, and the embodiment has modified itself to suit this development (mind is precisely the main instrument of ignorance seeking for knowledge); so mind can develop supermind which is in its nature knowledge not seeking for itself, but manifesting itself by its own automatic power, and the embodiment can again modify itself or be modified from above so as to suit this development. Faith is a necessary means for arriving at realisation because we are ignorant and do not yet know that which we are seeking to realise; faith is indeed knowledge giving the ignorance an intimation of itself previous to its own manifestation, it is the gleam sent before by the yet unrisen Sun. When the Sun shall rise there will be no longer any need of the gleam. The supramental knowledge supports itself, it does not need to be supported by faith; it lives by its own certitude. You may say that farther progression, farther development will need faith. No, for the farther development will proceed on a basis of knowledge, not of Ignorance. We shall walk in the light of knowledge towards its own wider vistas of self-fulfilment.
July 7, 1936
No opinion about Shivalingam's injections?
You can try. But I thought you wanted to try salicylating first.
July 8, 1936
I am stuck up at the end of a poem. Your last "pressure" [5.7.36] has failed. Give a little again please, so that I may complete the poem tonight.
When do you work at night?
July 10, 1936
The trouble is that I have no definite time for working at night, but usually it's at 9 p.m. Suppose when I intend to write poetry, I inform you along with the report and wait for the Force from 9 o'clock, wouldn't that be better?
I don't know that it would. It might work like that if I were always free to concentrate on particular things at a particular time; but that does not happen.
Doesn't your pressure work itself out or does it take a long time? Do you think if you put the Force at an exact time, say 9 p.m., it has a greater chance of immediate success?
One can't make a rule like that. There is nothing more variable than the way the Force acts.
J was rather discouraged by a fall from her previous height and said there is no use then writing or labouring so much.
She can't expect to succeed equally every time. No poet does. I have tried to explain that to her.
She says she also feels an urge for writing novels and does not know how to run two horses together. Is it possible to work part of the day on novel and part on poetry?
It is quite possible to do it if one accustoms oneself to do it. But I suppose she gets absorbed in the novel or concentrated in the effort of poetry and the energy refuses to divert itself or gets disturbed if it is.
July 11, 1936
"They drink the Light from Heaven's golden cores..."
How many "cores" do you think Heaven has? Singular, sir, singular!
If the Force is so variable, why then did you ask about my working time at night? Surely you had hit upon some idea!
The exact knowledge of circumstances always helps the action, even if it does not follow a rule deduced from the circumstances.
S says Asram bread does not agree with him, responsible for heaviness, want of appetite etc., asks for bazaar bread. What does the doctor say?
July 12, 1936
I am obliged to keep N12 for the usual reason. It is already beyond time and my work unfinished.
I don't think Asram bread has anything to do with S's "non-agreement", for he takes only 1 or 2 slices in the morning. The real complaint is that he doesn't like curries.
Is not I.K. cooking for him? He has sent me a letter asking for her to cook this or that dish he wants. This is beyond me. I am not a dietist—or whatever the proper word may be.
July 13, 1936
No, I.K. does not cook for S. He wants to stop soup, as it makes him heavy!
What an idiot!
He wants to try semolina in milk. So shall I get some from M?
You can ask M—I didn't know he had semolina.
But don't yield too much to S's imaginations, he will become impossible.
Any time for NK's poem?
Forgot it on my table.
July 14, 1936
Jaswant writes: "Deepest Love to Sri Aurobindo. Do convey it if Papa writes blessings, if Jaswant comes up in memory..."
Don't understand. What is to be conveyed? And how do the two ifs relate together or with the "convey"?
I have begun two poems, one came on top of the other. A rush of ideas invading!
Very good.
Please try if you can, to circulate some Force at night—9 p.m., and afternoon, just when you regain your curvilinear proportions—2.30 p.m.
There is no such regularity about curvilineation. However I will circulate whenever possible.
S has sent me the accompanying letter. I absolutely refuse to ask the Mother or give orders upon his chits for food, so I refer it to you. I can't rely on him—here he asks for oil, but you had written that you had said no to oil. It seems to me if he takes oil and spices and greasy things before the bile is entirely out of his blood, it will be there for good. S has neither self-restraint nor common sense. His খেয়াল13 is his guide. But are we to follow it?
... I am in sheer despair. I want to say—damn it all, damn it all. Let me—
Don't damn, but lift up quietly.
July 15, 1936
Force, Force, please. I have begun four poems and none complete. Every day I get new lines at Pranam, but can't complete a single poem!
Very well, let us try to bring them to completion.
Today S told me that he took a little rice, one potato, one brinjal-roast, one karela.
Karela is good, potato passable—brinjal detestable, but I suppose less so roast than fried.
Today after a "storm" with X, everything is clear. And now I am completely out of the gloom, and am happy. How it came about—tomorrow perhaps.
Very good. However it came about, the result is gratifying.
July 16, 1936
... But is it really "gratifying"? It may be so as far as my gloominess is concerned. But the ultimate result?
The ultimate result is for the Ultimate to see—I was speaking in and of the immediate.
I am now determined to turn myself towards you as far as possible.
Have X and I formed our old attachments in this garb?...
All that depends on the Ulterior (not the Ultimate). It is an advantage to have got to a friendly relation rather than a hard scraggy one which gave neither release nor quietude. The evolution from that basis depends on the future.
... A strong aspiration for more and more purity, sincerity, etc., is coming down. Contact with her gives me real joy. I see the vital receding... But are all these illusions? Will you explain?
No use explaining. If you keep to the understanding and to your aspiration, psychology will take care of itself.
Give both of us your blessings and help to keep our relation pure, harmonious and happy. Will you?
Yes.
Jatin says he can wait even for a year, for your reply. I hope it won't be as bad as that. I'll write that he need have no fear in these difficulties as your Force and protection are with him. Shall I?
S says he feels hungry now, will be absolutely all right in 4 or 5 days. Three cheers!!
What about bile?
July 17, 1936
Madan Gopal suddenly got high fever... Seems to be malaria which he had before... I might give him an injection tomorrow for quick action. Sanction?
If it is the antimalarial injection given to Jyotin, yes.
I asked N.P. to keep a watch over him; so N.P. should not go for work in the afternoon. He wants your permission.
July 18, 1936
I hope I don't trouble you unnecessarily with detailed questions on poetry?
No.
D.L. has pain in the abdomen, fever, weakness, etc. She says whenever there is fever, there is this pain; I am inclined to think it is the other way round.
I should suppose so.
I'm afraid, her work, which is rather heavy, should be cut down.
The heavy part of the work is being done now by hired people. She is supposed only to supervise.
It seems to be ulcer. Some cases have been cured by just olive oil taken orally. I'll try it with simple diet...
All right. It can be tried.
July 19, 1936
S is hardly better. We have to buy a few more pills. Sanction?
The fellow is thinking only of eating and renewing his ordinary life—he can't be allowed to chronicise his beastly jaundice.
July 20, 1936
V has had diarrhoea last 2 days. I wonder if it is due to cold in the stomach or the mangoes he had taken.
Probably latter. It was at least Mother's first idea, though she knew nothing about the mangoes.
P's boil squeezed out...
Mother gave a chit for one month yeast treatment; did you get it (from Tajdar)? With these boils always coming some blood purification is surely necessary.
July 23, 1936
D says: "If you want to publish your literary work, you must see that people understand it—not the public at large, but, as Virginia Woolf says, a select public. Otherwise don't publish at all. The very idea of publication means an appreciation, and how can one appreciate an unintelligible thing?"
What is not understood or appreciated by one select circle may be understood or appreciated by another select circle or in the future like Blake's poetry. Nobody appreciated Blake in his own time—now he ranks as a great poet—more poetic than Shakespeare, says Housman. Tagore wrote he could not appreciate D's poetry because it is too "Yogic" for him. Is Tagore then unselect, one of the public at large?
D says that your case is different, because you don't care for publication!
It is not for that reason.
Any light on the issue of the publication, and the public being the judge?
I don't agree at all with not publishing because you won't be understood. At that rate many great poets would have remained unpublished. What about the unintelligible Mallarmé who had such a great influence on later French poetry?
S still feels weak. His bile colour is improving. Shall I give him some iron and nux vomica?
Not iron as yet—let the bile go out first—Nux vomica yes.
July 24, 1936
One more poem completed.
I don't know its exact meaning and I am feeling rather shy to send it lest you also should find no meaning at all.
Plenty of meaning, but not "exact". Exact meaning is not the forte of this kind of poetry.
One suggestion please: can I use স্বপনিকা14 for a she-dreamer? I find in the Bengali dictionary the word স্বপ্নক15 meaning a sleepy person. If স্বপ্নক why not স্বপ্নিকা16 or স্বপনিকা?
I have not met any স্বপ্নক in Sanskrit, but if there is one, his wife might very correctly be স্বপ্নিকা.
A question about Jatin's room business. I have found a single small room—rent Rs. 7 per month, no furniture, no light.
Does not sound promising.
Another house for Rs. 20, but people below go on playing music almost all the time.
Don't know Jatin's financial capacities or his attitude towards badly played music.
There is another house in front of your room. Rs. 15 per month...
? Whose house?
You said nothing about J.
What to say? Cure the fellow anyhow. The old Dr. used to regard his sufferings as things of the nerves more than anything else.
D.L. still feels weak, shall I try arsenic and nux vomica?
No objection to Nux Vomica. Arsenic? Well, if you think it might be cautiously tried, but she is fatty already and may not be a fit arsenical subject.
S has been having fever for the last 15 days, especially in the afternoons. I asked her to come in the afternoon to show the fever. She came in my absence and said to Mulshankar that as she was feeling all right no medicine was necessary!
That was why we sent her to you that she might suddenly feel all right. She used to go to Dr. Banerji with "high fever" which proved to be not fever at all when he put the thermom.
July 25, 1936
I send you my poem with some changes made in the chhanda by Dilip and Nishikanta. I can't quite see their point; but as they are masters in metre I have to consider. What does your ear say?
My opinion on metrical points is not of much value. I dare say you are right, but the alterations made sound better.
Nishikanta says "red tears" is not very appropriate, for tears are associated with transparency. Can one use "red tears of pain" in English?
Yes, in English one can, as poetical equivalent to the common phrase "tears of blood".
The third house I spoke to you about, for Jatin, belongs to the fisherman who, I understand, wanted to catch you in his net!
[Sri Aurobindo underlined "catch you".]
? Probably you are mistaking the identity. It was another member of the family.
Another poem by J! She seems to be flowering very rapidly.
But I can't pronounce upon the chhanda as I'm not a metrist. So I approach you.
Neither am I.
J says that when she was writing it, she thought she knew what it meant, but after it was finished, it seemed strange to herself!
It is strange, but admirable. More and more Blakish. One feels what it means, but mentally it is inexplicable. (I mean of course in the details; the general idea is clear.)
July 26, 1936
Today another poem by J. I'm staggered by her speed in writing. She says lines, chhanda, simply drop down, and she jots them down. She feels as if somebody is writing through her.
But that is how inspiration always comes when the way is clear and the mind sufficiently passive. Something drops or pours down; somebody writes through you.
I don't know that by one's mind one can write such things. What do you say?
Not possible. There would be something artificial or made up in them if it were the mind that did it.
How has she opened to the mystic plane? Something akin to her nature or one just opens?
It may be either.
Even when a thing drops down, isn't it rather risky to accept it as it comes, specially the chhanda part of it?
If anything is defective, it can be only by a mistake in the transcription.
Does the chhanda also come down with inspiration or has one to change it afterwards?
Yes, it comes and is usually faultless—if the mind is passive and the source a high, deep or true one. Of course metre as the Supraphysicals understand it!
I shall illustrate my point. J says she sometimes rejects lines because she doesn't understand their meaning. But since they repeatedly throw themselves on her, she accepts them. When the poem is completed the meaning becomes clear.
The mind ought to be quiet till all is written. Afterwards one can look and see if there is anything to be altered.
All this is really funny. How has she got this Blakish opening without even reading him? Was she Blake or Mrs. Blake by any chance?
Not necessarily. She was certainly not Blake. What I meant was not that they were just like Blake's or a reproduction of his, but simply that they have a kindred mystical stamp and come from a similar source of inspiration. The figures, the form, the general vision are quite different from Blake's.
Lines come down in her meditation or she actually hears them!
Why not? It is quite common with many here.
How do you find the metre of this poem? It seems a bit jerky to me. And how do you like the word উল্লাসে?17
I don't know really the law of Bengali metre in this respect. In an English stanza it would be quite natural to have these variations, especially if they go by pairs as here. But you should know better what is or is not admissible in Bengali. Of course Bengalically the last line may be dropped—but উল্লাসে spoils the symmetry of the sense a little, as it is intended to refrain the idea of the opening lines. However if necessary as metre, উল্লাসে will do very well.
You didn't write anything about Jatin's room business?
Forgot, by Jove!
July 27, 1936
You say you don't know enough Bengali nor the metre, but all these discussions have revealed that your "don't know" is much more than "we know". Whether you know or don't know, we will write and please just opine on it.
Very well, I will go on hazarding my perceptions of Form in the Formless. Metre and law can always take care of themselves.
My poetic fervour has volatilised away!
Well, it was a good spirit anyway.
J says that even a few beautiful lines in a poem give her a thrill.
Well, that is the natural effect on a poet.
You know I have always complained of the lack of any such happiness. I write because I have nothing else to do. I say to myself, "It is not this, not this, neti neti, that I want. I want something deep, great and wide filling my whole being with ananda, peace."
And yet you say there is no strand of Yogic seeking in you anywhere?
Neti neti with this longing for something deep and great in the nature of Ananda filling the being and the vairagya for anything less (নাল্পে সুখমস্তি ভূমা সুখমস্তি) [nālpe sukhamasti, bhūmā sukhamasti] is the very nature of the Yogic push and impulse, at least according to the Vedantic line.18
I seek for Ananda, it eludes me—Love, Peace are nowhere. If poetry doesn't give them, what's the use?
Poetry does not give love and peace, it gives Ananda, intense but not wide or lasting.
You will say that it is my mind that obstructs by its struggle.
Your mind has obstructed the free flow of the poetry—but what it has obstructed more is the real peace and Ananda that is "deep, great and wide". A quiet mind turned towards the ভূমা19 is what you need.
I have written poems without much obstruction, but they didn't give me any joy except the last one: The Bird of Light,20 which gave me just a thrill.
Perhaps the beginning of Ananda of poetry, because it came from a deeper than mental source.
Isn't it a fact that the best poetry, almost always, comes down without any resistance at all?
Usually the best poetry a poet writes, the things that make him immortal, come like that.
July 28, 1936
Yes, there is a longing no doubt, for something deep, and নেতি নেতি21 also is there; but I don't find vairagya for anything less as yet—
নেতি নেতি is itself vairagya—the true vairagya.
For I am thinking of past vital pleasures, sweet memories of happy peaceful moments in a happy sunny or moony atmosphere, and am thinking—ah, if I could get back those rare moments!
That is in another part of your vital—the lower.
So how shall I trust this নেতি as real or this "yogic strand"? All the time this blessed vital thought goes on! Yogic strand!
Your argument is that because the Yogic strand is not the whole of the nature, it cannot be real. This is rather illogical. The Yogic strand is always in the beginning a strand, a movement or impulsion from one part of the nature, however veiled or small. It grows afterwards, slowly or quickly, according to people and circumstances, on the rest.
In spite of everything, a deep urge is there but a dissatisfaction too because I can't get it. Can this be a psychic sadness?
It is the feeling of the higher vital which has been affected by the psychic.
I doubt.
! That's the mind at it.
Anyway I have realised that without "something" deeply and lastingly settled in me, I can't do anything. I don't know what is that something or how to get it, so I lament.
It is the wideness of the higher or spiritual consciousness with its vast peace, light, knowledge, force, Ananda.
You say my mind obstructs, whereas I thought it is the vital hankering that hinders.
Your mind obstructs with its perpetual "I doubt" (see above). The vital of course by its hankerings.
Of course the mind is always thinking, worrying, but isn't it because the vital is restless?
Partly or mostly, but also because it is the nature of the mind to doubt, worry, eternally parliamentarise about things instead of getting them done.
J sends a poem. She doesn't think much of it, as it was done so quickly. She says she heard the first few lines in sleep. After reading the whole poem, I have found it is impossible to write it simply from facility. It is an inspiration-poem.
Of course it is impossible. There must be inspiration. The value of the poem does not rise from the labour or difficulty felt in writing it. Shakespeare, it is said, wrote at full speed and never erased a line.
I don't know about the fineness of the poem, but the chhanda and her originality in thought and expressions move me so much.
The poem is fine.
She says that while she was writing it, she felt some heavy pressure in the nape of the neck, then it came down and she was compelled to shut her eyes after which she felt all right and the poem came down quickly.
The pressure is the sign of a Yoga-force at work.
You said that Blake put down with fidelity whatever came down.
I didn't mean that he never altered—I don't know about that. I meant he did not let his mind disfigure what came by trying to make it intellectual. He transcribed what he saw and heard.
Will you circulate some Force towards me?
July 29, 1936
Yesterday I had a very strange dream—not exactly a dream. 3 or 4 of us were listening to D singing with his teacher Majumdar (now dead) who was playing the harmonium. Majumdar joined D in the song. Then the harmonium stopped; Majumdar, carried away by the bhāva, made very fine rhythmic movements, uttering some lines now and then. Oh, the whole thing was exquisite. Then the funniest thing happened; Majumdar was turned into D, and I found it was D who was uttering the lines and making the movements with a bare upper body. Then the bust became luminous and he went on singing, dancing and gradually his luminous bust rose in the air and vanished away! Someone cried out—he is an avatar, avatar... The whole thing so influenced me that even after my sleep broke, I remained quiet, thinking of that very pleasant vision. It was 3.15 a.m. What's this now?
A very queer dream in the vital plane—rather mixed with contributions from the subconscient. Possibly it was the element of Majumdar that D had absorbed which you saw in that figure, then it disappeared into D himself, the inner progress he had made through his music being figured in the bust being luminous. But the vanishing away and the avatar beat me.
I enclose a poem of J with the corrected version which is decidedly better than the original. She says formerly she used to aspire for things beautiful etc. instead of letting herself go. Now she remains passive—and this poem is the result. Any answer?
There is no incompatibility between aspiring and letting the thing come through. The aspiration gives the necessary intensity so that what comes has a better chance of being a true transcription. In this case probably the pain she felt in the neck etc. was a proof of some fatigue in the physical parts which spoiled the transmission...
I am afraid there is plenty of work for you tonight. You can keep my poem.
I am obliged to do so. I am issuing a notice for "Stop correspondence" but that need not deter you from sending your or J's poems with comments.
July 30, 1936
Well, Sir, what about my epic?
Splendid. This is a full-blown poem.
I notice some queer things happening in the realm of poetry between Nishikanta and myself. I wrote a line: চলছে ভেসে চাঁদের তরী ওই সুনীলের সাগরে,22 and did not follow it up. Two days later I find Nishikanta writing a poem wherein occurs the line কে ভাসালে চাঁদের তরী?23 Some time back a similar thing happened. These are about expressions; similar things are happening about chhanda also. Strange, isn't it?
Nothing queer about that. You dropped the inspiration and did not work it out; so it went off and prodded N who let it through. That often happens.
NK's new poems strike me as if a new channel has opened up in him. The poems seem to become more simple and deep—psychic?
Yes—he has made a big jump forward. Formerly it was all vital; afterwards vital-mental (I am speaking of the transmitting agency, not the source of inspiration or its substance), now a new element has come in. Psychic? I don't know—perhaps psycho-mental-vital. At any rate something wanting has been filled up—a missing chord has come in.
He himself admitted that J's poems have helped him in this direction. I think this simple mystic-symbolic touch he got from J.
It is probable.
It seems I don't get joy in writing because I haven't yet got my own source and am writing only by the mind. If true, don't mental works give joy?
The mental by itself gives a kind of aesthetic রস,24 but not ভোগ25—ভোগ comes from the excited participation of the vital, আনন্দ26 from above.
But there is such a thing as an aesthetic thrill. Why don't I get it?
Probably the higher vital does not sufficiently participate.
D.L. has rashes. They are probably due to enema or salicylic acid.
It must be the salicylic.
July 31, 1936
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