Sri Aurobindo : conversations
THEME/S
22-5-1925
The talk turned on the subject of Indians writing English poetry. Sri Aurobindo remarked that when he was conducting the Arya he received heaps of poems.
Sri Aurobindo asked about Hindi literature, inquiring whether it carried the modern spirit in its works.
Disciple : It contains the element of nationalism, that is the new strain; as for the rest there is not much that can be called modern. The form at present is mainly lyrical.
Sri Aurobindo : But the lyric is quite old in Hindi.
Disciple : What about X’s English poetry.
Sri Aurobindo : Has he written anything new recently except his inexhaustible dramas that are no dramas?
Disciple : Y tells me that X has even begun to write in Hindi.
Sri Aurobindo : His poetry now-a-days is not what it was before. He gets an idea and then he goes on weaving image after image. There is more language than substance. Besides, he has not the self-control to put in only what is necessary. His first collection was very good. He has language and he knows the technique; but it is high time he condensed his expression instead of diffusing it as he is doing.
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12-10-1926
Disciple : What name can be given to your philosophy – viśis,t,ādwaita, kevalādwaita, or śuddhādwaita?
Sri Aurobindo : Or, Dwaitawāda of Madhvacharya or Dwaitā dwaita of Nimbārka? Unfortunately all philosophy is mental, i.e., intellectual, while the Supramental is not mental. Therefore, it is not possible to express it completely – because the mind can't. Even when Supermind takes up the task, it only gives indications, gives to the mind some side of itself, some aspect.
Disciple : But you have written philosophy in the Arya.
Sri Aurobindo : Arya was written because of Richard. After starting it he went away and left me alone to fill 64 pages per month. The Life Divine is not philosophy but fact. It contains what I have realised and seen. I think many people would object to calling it philosophy. Of course, there are elements of all the systems in the Arya. But Supermind would remain even if the whole of the Arya were rubbed out or had never been written. Supermind is not to be philosophised about, it is to be lived.
Disciple : When one lives in the Supermind then there will be perfect expression of it, I believe.
Sri Aurobindo : Not necessarily. I have been telling you it can't be fully expressed. It can be experienced and lived. Do you think living it is inferior to expressing it?
Disciple : Can one express it in art?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes. In music, for instance, something of it can be expressed but then to the ordinary mind it might convey nothing. To the man who is ready, or who has some glimpses of it, it may convey much more than to another. That is not because of the thing expressed but because the man is able to go from what is expressed to what is behind the expression.
Disciple : Can poetry be the medium of its expression.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it can also be. Art and poetry can be
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the media though they are not adequate. But one who attains the Supermind does not sit down to write philosophy about it. That is just like using poetry to teach grammar, so as to take all poetry out of it. Even when Supermind finds expression it would carry its meaning only to the man who knows; as the Veda puts it, "Words of the Seer which reveal their mystery only to the Seer". One can't express the whole Supramental Truth but something of it can come through.
Disciple : The other day you spoke about the psychic element in poetry. Is it that which constitutes the highest expression of Truth in poetry?
Sri Aurobindo : There are different types of poetry. That is to say, poetry there may be and yet the psychic element in it may not be strong.
Disciple : What do you think of Vedic poetry?
Sri Aurobindo : It is poetry on the plane of intuitional vision. There is rhythm, force and other elements of poetry in it, but the psychic element is not so prominent. It is from a plane much higher than the mental. It moves by vision on the plane of intuition, though there are passages in which you may find the psychic element. It is a wide and calm plane, – it also moves you but not in the same way as the poetry which contains the psychic feeling. It has got its own depth – but psychic poetry differs from it in its depth and feeling.
Disciple : Is it true that psychic poetry would be more personal?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, one can say so. It moves you differently. Vedic poetry is more impersonal. The centre of vision in psychic poetry is the centre between the eyebrows, in Vedic poetry it is from above the mind. Take, for instance, the hymn : "Covering after covering becomes conscious, in the lap of the Mother he entirely sees." Here you find the whole process of opening up the consciousness to the
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Truth, and the descent of the Light into the being, but it is different from psychic poetry.
Disciple : In Vedic poetry the psychic feeling comes to the front in hymns expressing aspiration for Agni or for Surya. Disciple : Can you give an instance of psychic poetry? Is there a psychic element in Vidyapati?
Sri Aurobindo : I think there is some, though it is rare even in Chandidas.
As for psychic poetry, take Shelley's lines :
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
There the feeling and the expression are both psychic.
Disciple : We find true poetry in the Ishopanishad. Where does it come from?
Sri Aurobindo : It is from the plane of inspiration. It is inspiration of knowledge, The Upanishads are all very high poetry.
Disciple : Then psychic poetry is not the highest poetry?
Sri Aurobindo : Well what do you mean by the highest poetry? Two things are essential for high poetry : vision and beauty, and of course, the power of expression must be there.
Disciple : We recently heard the song "Jaya jaya Gokula pāla".
Sri Aurobindo : That is devotional poetry, not psychic.
Disciple : "Ā hā! Ki majā ki majā" is not poetry (laughter).
Sri Aurobindo : I mentioned vision and beauty as two necessary elements but they do not belong to one plane only, they may belong to various planes.
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There must be for great poetry power of beauty, power of vision, power of expression – it may be on any plane. For example, it may be on the plane of vital aesthesis, or any other. All poetry need not be psychic.
Disciple : Do you find the psychic element in Kalidasa's poetry?
Sri Aurobindo : Psychic? I don't think there is much psychic element in his poetry. Vital and aesthetic if you like, – that he has in an extraordinary degree and you find even a certain dignity of thought.
12-12-1938
A few of Tagore's last poems were read, which were supposed to bear the burden of experience.
Disciple : Is there anything here?
Sri Aurobindo : Nothing much, except that he speaks of the Light in the first poem.
Disciple : In the rest he speaks of losing the body-consciousness and the world-memory getting fainter and fainter.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, that means death. What next?
Disciple : Does it not mean that he is getting into another world?
Sri Aurobindo : Well, if it is so; why does he not speak about it? The poem is hazy. The Vaishnava poets state their experience clearly in their poems.
Disciple : D told me that Tagore in the agony of pain tried to concentrate hard and he could mentally separate himself from the pain and get relief.
Sri Aurobindo : That is a spiritual experience.
Disciple : In another of his early poems also he speaks of an experience; one day on the terrace of the Jorasanko House he felt a sudden outburst of joy and the whole of nature and life seemed to him bathed in Ananda. The poem Nirjharer
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Swapna Bhanga" is the outcome of the experience
Sri Aurobindo : That is also a spiritual experience, what does he say in that poem?
Disciple : He speaks of a fountain that flows breaking all the barriers rushing towards the sea
Sri Auroblndo : But why did he adopt the symbol? Did the experience come with the symbol?
Disciple : It does not seem so.
Sri Aurobindo : I don't know whether the symbol came with the experience. The experience should have been put as he felt it. Nobody reading the poem would realise that it was written from experience. He tends to become decorative and the danger of decoration is that the main thing gets suppressed by it.
Take the line from the Rig Veda which I have quoted in The Future Poetry "Raising the living and bringing out the dead." When one reads it, it becomes clear at once that it is written from experience. Ushā, the goddess of dawn, raises higher and higher whatever is manifested, and she brings out all that had remained latent into manifestation. Of course, one has to become familiar with the symbol in order to grasp the truth.
Disciple : But mystic poetry is bound to be a little hazy and vague. Tagore has also written simple and clear poems in his Gitanjali, e.g. "āmār māthā nata kare dao". Perhaps one can write that sort of poem mentally also.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, one need not have any experience to write that.
Disciple : You once spoke of mystic poetry as "moonlight” and of spiritual poetry as "sunlight". .
Sri Aurobindo : No. I meant "occult poetry". There are two kinds of mystic poetry : occult-mystic and spiritual-mystic. That poem of mine about the moon and the star or "The Bird of Fire" is occult mystic. In “Nirvana”, for instance, I have put exactly what Nirvana is.
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One is at liberty to use any symbol or image but what one says must be very clear through these symbols or images.
For example,
"Condition after condition is born
Covering after covering becomes conscious
In the lap of the Mother he sees" (Rig Veda V. 19.1)
Here images are used but it is very clear to any one knowing the symbol what is meant and it is the result of genuine experience.
Take another instance :
"The seers climb Indra like a ladder" Along
with the ascent "much that remains to be
done becomes clear" (Rig Veda I.10. (1.2)
It is an extraordinary passage expressing perfectly a spiritual experience. Indra is the Divine Mind and as one ascends higher and higher in it or on it, all that has to be done becomes clearly visible. One who has that experience can at once see how perfectly true it is and that it must have been written from experience and not from imagination.
Disciple : Cannot one write about .spiritual truths sometimes, even without having any experience or being conscious of them?
Sri Aurobindo : Why not? The inner being can have the vision and can express it.
Disciple : Can one who is not a mystic himself write mystic poems?
Sri Aurobindo : One can; if one has a tradition inspiring him or a mystic part in his make-up.
3-1-1939
Disciple : a man called Ferrar passed through Calcutta when the
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Alipore trial was going on. Was he known to yon in England?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, he was my classmate at Cambridge, but he could not see me in the court when the trial was going on. All the accused were put into a cage lest they should jump out and murder the Judge! Ferrar was a barrister practising at Singapore or Malaya. He saw me in the court-cage and was very much concerned and did not know how to get me out.
It was he who gave me the clue to the hexameter verse in English. He read out a line from r which he thought was the best line and that gave me the swing of the meter. There is really no successful hexameter in English. Matthew Arnold and his friends have attempted it but they have failed.
Disciple : I thought Yeats has written it.
Sri Aurobindo : Where? I did not know. I think you mean the Alexandrine.
Disciple : Perhaps it is that.
Sri Aurobindo : Plenty of people have written it. But this is dactylic hexameter, – the meter in which the epics of r and Virgil are written. It has a very fine movement and is very suitable for the epic. I have tried it and X and Y have seen and considered it a success. I remember just a few lines : –
Old and alone he arrived, insignificant, feeblest of mortals,
Carrying Fate in his helpless hands and the doom of an empire. Ilion
Disciple : When did you begin to write poetry?
Sri Aurobindo : When we three brothers were staying at Manchester. I began to write for the Fox family Magazine.
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I was very young. It-was an awful imitation of somebody I don’t remember. Then I went to London where I began to write poetry. Some of the poems then written are published in Songs to Myrtilla.
Disciple : Did you learn meter at school ?
Sri Aurobindo : They don't teach meter at school, I began to read and then write poetry by following the sound. I am not a prosodist like X.
Disciple : Had Mono Mohan already become a poet while in England.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, he, Lawrence Binyon, Stephen Phillips were all poets. But he did not come to very much, though he brought out a book – Prima Vera – in conjunction with others like Binyon and it was well spoken of. But I dare say my brother stimulated me to write poetry.
Disciple : Was not Oscar Wilde his friend?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, he was. Mono Mohan used to visit him very often in the evenings and he used to describe Mano Mohan in his childish way : "a young Indian panther in Evening brown”!
Wilde was as brilliant in conversation as he was in writing. Once some of his friends came to see him and asked him how he had passed the morning. He described at length his visit to the Zoo and gave a graphic description of what he had seen, the animals and other things. Then at the end Mrs. Wilde put in in a small voice – "But how could you say that, Oscar, when you have been with me all the morning ?"
He replied : "Darling one must be imaginative sometimes."
There is another story of Wilde. Once a proof was sent to him for correction. He wrote to the press, "I have put in a comma." Then the second proof came and
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he sent it back with the remarks, “I have taken out the comma”.
9-1-1939
Disciple : Is it true that the epic now, after Milton, will tend to be more subjective?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is so. The idea that an epic requires a story has been there for long, but the story as a subject for an epic seems to be exhausted. It will have to be more subjective and the element of interpretation will have to be admitted.
Disciple : There is an idea that the form of the epic may be a combination of epic and drama, or may be a series of odes in combination like the one written by Meredith.
Sri Aurobindo : There has been an effort by Victor Hugo. His La Légende des siècle is epic in tone, in thought and movement. And yet it is not given its right place by the critics. It does not deal with a story but with episodes. That is the only epic in the French language.
Disciple : Some maintain that as there is no story in Dante’s Divine Comedy it is not an epic.
Sri Aurobindo : It is an epic. Paradise Lost has very little story and very few incidents, yet it is an epic. At present men demand something more than a great story from an epic.
Disciple : Hyperion of Keats, – is it an epic?
Sri Aurobindo : The first draft of it would have been an epic – if he could have kept to the height and finished the poem. But in the second draft there is already a drop – a decline from the epic height.
Disciple : There have been Indian writers of English poetry. What do you think of them?
Sri Aurobindo : They do write poetry in English and it may even be successful, but it is not the real man who is speaking. Very few can do it in another language. Sarojini Naidu
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had a small range but had the Capacity to express- herself.
Disciple : The general impression is that poetry is not in vogue in England, or perhaps anywhere else.
Sri Aurobindo : It is true; poetry is not read in England today. Somebody sent my poems to a publisher who gave them to his reader. He said : "They are remarkable poems and have a new element in them. But I don't advise their publication. If the writer has written anything in prose it is better to publish it first and then the poems may go."
Disciple : Harin's poems were sent to Masefield but got only lukewarm praise from him. He said they were "interesting".
Sri Aurobindo : Why were they sent to Masefield?
Disciple : Perhaps, because he was the poet Laureate.
Sri Aurobindo : Generally Poet-Laureates are uninteresting : Very few are like Wordsworth and Tennyson. Masefields' poems are Georgian rhetoric.
Disciple : Do you remember Volsung Saga by William Morris?
Sri Aurobindo : It is a very good poem; it is an exercise in Epic. I remember his Earthly Paradise which is exceedingly fine. There is a tendency to run down Morris, because he derived his inspiration from the Middle Ages as the Victorian age did not give him any subject. Shelley and Keats both tried to bring in the epic with the subjective element, but they failed because they tried to put it in the old forms.
Disciple : Toru Dutt has written poetry in English and was well-spoken of for some time.
Sri Aurobindo : She has written poetry, – not as an Indian writing in English but like an Englishwoman. But in England no one considers her a great poet. The only vigorous poetry she wrote was about the German invasion of France. That is because of her great sympathy for
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France. I remember her phrase for France : “The head of the human column” and “Atilla’s own exultant hordes” for the Germans.
After reading some of the modernist poetry I am not surprised that poetry is not read today.
6-1-1940
A letter to one of the poet-disciples was received from Tagore in which he had tried to make the following points :
i. Those who try to express high spiritual truths in poetry tended to create something new – a novelty – and, therefore, there was ces,t,ā, effort, in their writings.
ii. A true literary architect would build rather on the common earth of common humanity – “jana sādhāran,a” – and not insist on building on “Kanchan Jangha” – Himalayan heights.
iii. He suggested that the “cira purātana dhārā” – “the age-old way”– in literature should be the guide.
Sri Aurobindo : I believe those who have experience or vision of spiritual truth, when they do express themselves in poetry, try to reproduce it as they see it and make no effort – ces,tā – to make themselves understood. So the work is not a result of effort. And it is just this that makes their poetry difficult for others.
And as to his second point about building on common earth, it may be that the poet may not build for all, he may have a private chapel. The artist creates moved by an inner urge, not according to any ulterior motive, or consideration for the mass.
Disciple : Tagore also says that even if the artist sees a heavenly vision he will build his heaven on earth.
Sri Aurobindo : He may, but it is not necessarily so.
Disciple : About art Kelelker’s contention is that it is a
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vessel. His idea is that the food is more important than the vessel in which it is served.
Sri Aurobindo : Perhaps that is Tagore’s idea too. But there can’t be art without form. If you have substance only then it is only substance and not art. An artist tries to give body to his vision and you can’t separate the soul from the body. These images – vessel and food – can be applied to physical processes, not to any inner process like art-creation.
Disciple : When he speaks of the “cira purātana dhārā” – “the age-old way” in literature, he forgets that he himself would have said when he began his new style that he did not care for the cira purātana” way, as it is purātana – “old” – and that he himself was “nitya nutana” – “ever new and fresh” – the same old truth expressing itself through ever new forms.
Sri Aurobindo : Sometimes poets themselves get into a groove and are unable to appreciate anything new.
7-1-1940
Disciple : Mahatma Gandhi at one of the literary conferences in Gujarat, 1920, asked the writers : “What have you done for the man who is drawing water from the well?”
Sri Aurobindo : What has he done for himself? I am afraid he has not done very much.
Most of these people forget that everybody in England does not understand Milton and that the ordinary man has to prepare himself to understand high poetry.
Disciple : Tagore says that even if what you have to give is Amrita – ambrosia – it must be eatable by the ordinary man.
Sri Aurobindo : But people also must have capacity to understand and enjoy noble literature.
Disciple : Kalelker in a recent article has tried to make
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out that Valmiki wanted to serve janatā, humanity – and so he recited the Ramayana from cottage to cottage! I can never understand this idea. I can't imagine Valmiki doing it. When did he find the time to write the Ramayana, if he was reciting it from place to place?
Sri Aurobindo : But where does Kalelker find his authority for saying so? The Ramayana was not recited to the mass by Valmiki : It was the reciters who popularised it.
Disciple : He refers to some verse in the Ramayana which describes how the Rishis heard the Ramayana and gave Valmiki a Kaupin – loin cloth, Kamandalu and a Parna-kuti – thatched house.
Sri Aurobindo : Good Lord! But the Rishis are not jana sādhārana – ordinary people; they lived apart and had reached a very high spiritual status. Is Kalelker understood by the masses?
Disciple : I believe, formerly, Tagore had not got this idea of jana sādhārana – the common man.
Sri Aurobindo : No. He had been always speaking of the viśwa mānava" – "the universal man". It is not the same as jana sādhārana. In the Vishwa Manava all the best people, as well as the lowest of humanity, are included. Perhaps in the jana sādhārana only the lowest remain.
Disciple : It is the proletarian idea of literature coming with the Socialistic and Communistic ideology. Or, perhaps it is the echo Of Vivekananda's daridra Nārāyana – the divine as the poorest.
Sri Aurobindo : I think it is Vivekanada who started the idea.
Disciple : He at least had the idea of Nārāyana while he served them – but nowadays the unfortunate part is that Nārāyana is lost sight of, – only the daridra – the poorest – remain.
Some time back there was an article in Hindi "Kasmai devāya havis,ā vidhema" – "To which God shall
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we make our offering?" and the writer answered : janatā Janārdanāya – "to the average humanity which is God". Thus Janārdana – God – is to be equated to janatā, – humanity – which is ignorant and imperfect. It almost seems that according to these people God outside janatā – average humanity – does not exist!
Sri Aurobindo : Quite so. ,
Disciple : And they don't try to raise the janatā – the common man – to janādanatwa – divinity. Every time they try to go down to its level. It does not seem possible to serve it by going down to its level.
17-1-1940
(The talk centred round Tagore's letter to Nishikanta concerning poetry.)
Sri Aurobindo : Take Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven. Everybody does not understand it : does it follow that Thompson is not a great poet? Or take the Upanishads. They deal with one subject only and have one strain : can we say, therefore, that it is not great poetry?
Disciple : Tagore does not raise the question of understanding but of variety. .
Sri Aurobindo : r has written on war and action. Can one say that those who write on many subjects are greater than r? Sappho wrote only on one subject : therefore can we say she is not great? What about Milton and Mirabai?
Disciple : What Tagore wants to say is that to be a perfect poet one must have variety.
Sri Aurobindo : In that case we have to conclude that no poet is perfect. Even Shakespeare has his limitations, Browning has variety. Can we, therefore, say that he is greater than Milton?
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Disciple : In considering the greatness of a poet, depth and height and variety have to be considered.
Sri Aurobindo : Height and depth – yes. But why compare greatnesses? Each one writes in his own way.
18-1-1940 – Morning
Disciple : We heard from you that some people consider Blake greater than Shakespeare – is it correct?
Sri Aurobindo : I did not say that. What Housman says is that Blake has more pure poetry than Shakespeare.
Disciple : What does he mean by that?
Sri Aurobindo : He means that Blake’s poetry is not vital or mental, i.e. intellectual, but comes from beyond the Mind and expresses spiritual and mystic experience.
Disciple : Since the two deal with quite different spheres, can the comparison be valid? Or, if Blake really has more pure poetry, then can he be said to be greater than Shakespeare?
Sri Aurobindo : Shakespeare is superior in one way, Blake in another. Shakespeare is greater because he has a greater poetic power and more creative force, while Blake is more expressive.
Disciple : What is the difference between the two?
Sri Aurobindo : "Creative" may be something which gives a picture of life creatively, representing the life-situation of the Spirit. "Expressive" is that which is just the expression of feeling, vision or experience. In the Hound of Heaven you get a true creative picture. Blake is confused and was a failure when he tried to be creative in his prophetic poems.
Disciple : Did you write to X that in life Shakespeare is everywhere and Blake nowhere?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is true.
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Disciple : But can we compare poets and decide who is greater?
Sri Aurobindo : How can you?
Disciple : But you said, for instance, that Yeats can be considered greater than A.E. because of greater style.
Sri Aurobindo : "More sustained'' style.
Disciple : Then, there is some standard – say, power of rhythm, expression, subject, form, substance, variety, etc.
Sri Aurobindo : If one has .all form and no substance, is he greater than one who has substance and no form? Some say Sophocles is greater than Shakespeare, others say Euripides is greater. There are others, again, who say Euripides is nowhere near Sophocles. How can you say whether Dante is greater than Shakespeare?
Disciple : It is better to ask what is the criterion of great poetry.
Sri Aurobindo : Is there any criterion?
Disciple : Then how to judge?
Sri Aurobindo : One feels these things.
Disciple : But different people feel differently.
Sri Aurobindo : So there cannot be a, universal standard. Each one goes by his feeling or opinion or liking.
Disciple : Abercrombie tries to give a general criterion. Only one point I remember just now : he says that if the outlook of the poet is negative and pessimistic, his poetry cannot be "great" – e.g. Hardy.
Sri Aurobindo : I don't see why. Usually, of course, great poets are not pessimistic, – they have too much life-force in them; but generally every poet is dissatisfied with something or other and has some element of pessimism in him. Sophocles said, "The best thing is not to be born." (Laughter)
Disciple : But we want you to give us the criterion or criteria by which one can decide the greatness of poetry.
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Sri Aurobindo : Why not be satisfied with what I have said? All I can say is that X has a greater mastery over the medium and greater creative force.
Disciple : What did you say about creative poetry?
Sri Aurobindo : Poetry is creative where it gives a complete picture of life as in the Hound of Heaven. There you have such a picture of the life of a man pursued by God.
Disciple : X is not quite successful in his mystic poems.
Sri Aurobindo : What do you mean by mystic? Occult? Symbolic? There are various kinds of mystic poetry.
18-1-1940 – Evening
Disciple : It is difficult to bring in creative force in mystic or symbolic poetry.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is difficult, but it is possible.
Disciple : Is there creative force in that sonnet of Mallarmé on the swan ?
Sri Aurobindo : I have forgotten the poem.
Disciple : That poem in which he speaks of the wings of the swan being stuck to the frozen ice so that it cannot fly.
Sri Aurobindo : There is no creative force in it; it is descriptive and expressive. In lyrical poetry it is generally difficult to give that creative force. In sonnet form it is only in a series of sonnets as in Meredith’s sonnets on “modern love”, that one can be put in creative force.
Disciple : That means it can be done only in descriptive and narrative poems.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, in epics, dramas, series of sonnets, as I said. But modern poets say that long poems are not poetry! Only in short poems you get the essence of pure poetry!
Disciple : Some of the moderns have themselves written
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long poems. Among Indian poets Tagore would score high as he has great creative force.
Sri Aurobindo : Tagore is essentially a lyrical poet, and has no more creative force in his poetry than in his drama. One of his long poems, debatār grāsh I remember, was very finely descriptive but it did not create anything.
Disciple : Is not X creative? He has traced the growth of consciousness from the ordinary level to the Transformation by turning to the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo : It is the description of an idea. In fact, very few poets are creative.
Disciple : I would like to understand more clearly your idea of creative poetry. Don’t you find in Tagore’s “jete nahi dibo” a great creative force?
Sri Aurobindo : No.
Disciple : It is – as he said just now about Debatār grāsh – a very good description.
Sri Aurobindo : The girl there is created out of Tagore’s mind. For example, when you read Hamlet, you become Hamlet – you feel you are Hamlet. When you read r, you see Achilles living and moving and you become Achilles. That is what I mean by creativeness. On the other hand, in Shelley’s Skylark there is no skylark at all. You do not become a skylark, – through that name the poet has only expressed his own ideas and feelings. Or take his line, “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” It is very fine poetry but it is not creative in the sense that it does not make you live in that truth.
Disciple : In poems of Bhakti – devotion – one can feel devotion.
Sri Aurobindo : It is feeling only. It does not create for you a living and moving world. Feeling is not enough to be creative.
Disciple : Abercrombie says that poetry should express
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and carry to the reader the poet's "experience"
Sri Aurobindo : It depends upon what you mean by "experience". An idea may be an experience, a feeling may be an experience.
Disciple : In comparing Shelley and Milton he says that ''Prometheus Unbound" is not as great a theme as "Paradise Lost".
Sri Aurobindo : It is not great because Shelley does rot create anything there. But the theme is equally great.
Disciple : He says that Satan and Christ are living characters created by Milton.
Sri Aurobindo : Satan is the only character he has created. His first four books are full of creative force. But Christ? – well – I object to the claim that he ever created Christ.
Disciple : About Dante Abercrombie says that he created Beatrice and her memory was always with him.
Sri Aurobindo : What about Dante's political life? I am sure he was not thinking of Beatrice when he was doing politics.
Disciple : Abercrombie says that a true poet passes on his experience to his readers.
Sri Aurobindo : But there are poets who neither experience nor even understand what they have written. They merely transcribe. I myself have done that. One can transmit and transcribe.
19-1-1940
The subject was continued. Two disciples had a discussion on the above topic and one of them did not quite catch the distinction between "creative force" and "experience" in poetry. They decided to raise the question to-day.
Sri Aurobindo caught the idea and so he asked : "Do you want to say something, or ask a question?”
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Disciple : X is not clear in his mind about "creative force" in regard to devotional poems. Why should they not be considered "creative" if one feels devotion by them?
Sri Aurobindo : Because you identify yourself with the feeling and not with the character or man as in the case of Hamlet. It must come out as a part of the poet's personality and the reader identifies himself with the world or personality which the poet has created or the experience which he had. Of course, anything is creative in a general way.
Disciple (1) : Abercrombie says that a great poet transmits his experience to the reader.
Disciple (2) : But one can transmit the creative force without having oneself the experience or without being conscious?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it can be done. But people who have the creative force usually make it a part of themselves, they have the experience first and then they transcribe it.
Disciple : How to get the correct force?
Sri Aurobindo : Either you have it or you do not have it. Some poets are born with it.
Disciple : Can one acquire it?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes. It can be developed. Most people have it within them, but it may not manifest. In yoga, of course, it is different. Here it depends on the power of opening.
Disciple : X says that your Bird of Fire has got "creative force. It is a creative symbolic poem.
Sri Aurobindo : (smiling) I don't know. It is for X to pronounce.
Disciple : He believes that your Shiva also "has the same force.
Sri Aurobindo : It is for others to judge. It is not necessary to become Shiva. The point is whether you find the picture created living, i.e. do you feel it alive?
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Disciple : I find it living. That is to say, it is not an idea of what Shiva is or stands for that is depicted. I find here a personality, a being.
Sri Aurobindo : That means what is created is living. But why not leave out my poetry? If you want examples I gave you that of the Hound of Heaven and you may add Chesterton's Lepanto.
Disciple : X says that if there is poetic force, it will be felt. I told him that everybody may not feel the force; the Hound of Heaven, for instance, won't be appreciated by everybody.
Sri Aurobindo : Not by jana sādhārana, the common man – as yon call him. But a poet or a literary man who has taste for poetry will feel the force, unless he has a prejudice.
Disciple : What about Meghnād Vadha of Madhusudan? Has it not creativeness?
Sri Aurobindo : Poor creation : what sort of Ravana has he created? It is an outline of an idealised non-rakshasic Rakshasa!
Bengalis in those days were very fond of weeping. I think it was Romesh Dutt who translated "Savitri'' from the Mahabharata and portrayed her as weeping, whereas in the Mahabharata there is no trace of it. Even when her heart was being sawed in two not a single tear appeared in her eyes. By making her weep he took away the very strength of which Savitri is built.
Disciple : He wanted to make it realistic perhaps.
Sri Aurobindo : He thought that Vyasa had made a mess of it. About Madhusudan, I don't say that it is not fine poetry, or that there is no force, or no thought in it. What I say is that it is not creative, it has no vital substance.
Disciple : People say he tried to imitate Milton.
Sri Aurobindo : Milton, r and everybody else perhaps!
Disciple : Among our poets here do you find X great?
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Sri Aurobindo : I was reading his book and I find it exceedingly fine poetry but in order to be called "great" that is not enough. In order to equal Tagore he must progress more in "body". I don't mean length. What I mean is the quality of massiveness. One can say his whole work has not got sufficient "body''. I have read his long poems also, but that element is not yet there. Yeats has not written long poems, but if you take his poems piece by piece you will see that he has sufficient "body" in his work. Tagore has added to the "body" of the world's literature. If you take poem by poem, perhaps, X's work may equal Tagore's, but he has not that "body" which the latter has and which can stand by itself.
Disciple : Is not X's poetry sufficiently characteristic?
Sri Aurobindo : It is; but I mean quite another thing. For instance, if Milton had not written Paradise Lost he would have still been a great poet, but he could not have occupied so great a place as he does in English literature. Keats, some people say, would have been as great as Shakespeare, had he lived. At least there was the promise in him, but it was not fulfilled.
Disciple : Some people have demanded of Y to attempt something big, like an epic.
Sri Aurobindo : For the epic you require the power of architectural construction. With most of these poets it is yet the promise and not the fulfilment of their poetic personality.
19-1-1940 ( ii )
Sri Aurobindo : You were asking me about an example of a lyrical poem which had the creative force in it. Well I can give you two examples from Tagore though it is no usual with him to write such lyrics. His Urvashi am Parash Pāthar have got that creative force – there he
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has created something, not a character, but some reality of the inner life of man. What I mean is it is not simply a description. Also Nishikanta in the Gorur Gadi has created something. You see there that the "cart" is a real cart and man in it is a real man; and yet it is the "world-cart" and the "world-man" in it.
Take Shelley’s Skylark or Keats's Nightingale. There you find that the Skylark and the Nightingale are nothing; they are only an occasion. It is the thoughts, the feelings and the images that rise in the poet's mind that you get when you read the poem.
27-1-1940
Disciple : I had a talk with X and he asks : How can Francis Thompson be called a great poet because he has written one poem the Hound of Heaven which is great ?
Sri Aurobindo : What do you mean by "great”? At any rate it is a great poem and one who has written great poem is a "great" poet.
Disciple : Perhaps if you take into account the mass of his work he may not appear great. But in his Hound of Heaven he has achieved the summit of poetic art and it sums up his whole life-experience. In that sense it is great.
Sri Aurobindo : And it is not individual life but universal life – anybody who goes through spiritual life gets that experience.
The idea of greatness of poetry is difficult to standardise. The French poet Villon, if you take his poems one by one, is equal in greatness to any other great poet, but if you take his work in a mass you can't justify his greatness. Petrarch has written only sonnets and that on one subject, and yet he is considered a great poet and given a place next to Dante. Simonides has not a single poem complete, he is known by fragments and yet he is regarded as second
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to Pindar who is called the greatest lyricist. The Hound of Heaven is a far greater poem than any of Oscar Wilde’s or of Chesterton’s.
26-9-1943
Disciple : What is the real root of man’s interest in story and literature? Is it independent of Truth? If it is not, what is its purpose?
Sri Aurobindo : Literature exists for its own sake; it is an independent value. Its purpose is governed by the law of Ananda. If you bring in, or make it serve, some other purpose, – say, morality or philosophy – then it does not serve its highest purpose.
Disciple : But literature, art, poetry all have to give us truth, have they not?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, in art, poetry and literature there is truth. However, it is not the discovery and the statement of truth in itself, but of the beauty of truth or truth as beauty.
The Law of Ananda governs these activities. Some parts of literature have their own laws : for instance, fiction. Its law is to represent life.
If the writer has spirituality in himself, it is bound to express itself in his poetry or art.
Disciple : Should then literature set before it the task of evolution towards, or an ascent to, a higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : Literature need not set that task before itself. It will itself be influenced automatically by the process of upward evolution and thus create higher and higher beauty and delight.
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28-9-1943
The talk centred round Lascelles Abercrombie's idea of great poetry. His general thesis is that literature is communication of experience involving three factors :
1. Subjective, 2. Objective, 3. Medium of communication.
Disciple : He says that in poetry the poet wants to transfer his experience without the least modification to others. That is to say, poetry – all literature for that matter – is not merely expression or self-expression; it is chiefly communication.
Sri Aurobindo : When a poet writes poetry he does not think of others who may read it. He should not, because then he would be influenced by their likes and dislikes. He thinks only of himself, as he should.
Disciple : But he writes because he has some experience.
Sri Aurobindo : What do you mean by experience ? You mean change in his subjective consciousness due to an outer or an inner impact, don't you? There are cases where the experience is not his own. It is something that descends or takes hold of him, or it may be even an experience imagined.
Disciple : Could an experience which is imagined be equally strong in expression as an actual experience ?
Sri Aurobindo : It depends. Experience as one has it is not literature; it is too matter of fact. Generally, it is divested of its local and personal character by a great writer. Imagination can only give him a mental construction; but inspiration can give a powerful expression. In a great poet you will find it is not merely an expression, but there is an element of creation. You can't define these things rigidly.
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January 1939
Disciple : They say the Mantras were heard by the Rishis. Is it the inner hearing?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes. It is the inner hearing. Sometimes one hears a line, a passage, a whole poem, or sometimes they come down. The best poetry is always written in that way.
Disciple : Yes. I remember that line, ''A fathomless beauty in a sphere of pain", coming to me as if someone had whispered it into my ear.
Sri Aurobindo : Quite. It is the inner being but sometimes one may be deceived. Inspiration from the lower planes also can come in an automatic way.
Disciple : Oh yes. I have been deceived many times like that. Lines which came at once and automatically and which I thought high-class turned out to be ordinary by your remarks.
Sri Aurobindo : One writes wonderful poems in dream, Surrealistic poems, but when they are written on paper they seem worthless. In Shakespeare in whom poetry always flowed, I suppose, the three lines in Henry IV invoking sleep
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes and rock his brains
In the cradle of the rude imperious surge ?
leap out strikingly from the rest. There is no doubt at all that these three lines have simply descended from above without any interruption. Or, his lyric, "Take 0 take those lips away" ¹ the whole of it has come down from above.
¹ Take, o take these lips away,
That so sweetly were foresworn;
And these eyes, that the break of day,
Light that do mislead the morn :
But my kisses bring again, bring again
Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed In vain.
"Measure for Measure" Act IV. Scene I
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12-8-1926
Disciple : What is it that creates physical beauty?
Sri Aurobindo : There is a certain vital glow which is really not beauty – when it is overpowering and full of personal magnetism it is dangerous.
Disciple : Can heredity account for beauty?
Sri Aurobindo : Not much. Too much of vital glow and charm may be due even to the hostile forces and it maybe dangerous.
Disciple : Does beauty belong to the vital world?
Sri Aurobindo : The true vital world is a world full of beauty and grandeur.
Disciple : Is not beauty a part of perfection?
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is; but beauty and perfection do not always go together in life.
Disciple : Is not beauty psychic in its origin?
Sri Aurobindo : The psychic element gives only a certain charm to the form, not what people ordinarily call beauty. There is a vital and a physical element in beauty and even in these there is an "inner" beauty, a certain charm, a flame in the object.
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Disciple : It is said that Sri Ramakrishna's body had a glow which he used to hide from men by covering his body. Can one say it was inner beauty?
Sri Aurobindo : It may be the light of the Spirit; that is not beauty. There are many people who are not spiritual but are beautiful and some spiritual men are not beautiful.
Disciple : What is meant by saying that the Supreme is the True, the Good and the Beautiful '' satyam-śivam-sundaram”?
Sri Aurobindo : That is a different thing. The "True" can be the mental form of the Supreme Truth, the "Good" has a relation to morality. Whereas ''Beauty" is different with different men, there is no one standard of beauty. There are certain things, however, which all people consider beautiful; for instance, the rose.
Disciple : What did Christ look like? Were the Rishis beautiful?
Sri Aurobindo : None can say, because there is no record.
Disciple : On what does the creation of beauty depend?
Sri Aurobindo : True beauty is a creation from the Ananda plane.
Disciple : But some people say there is beauty in everything.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes. There is a Stage in which everything has its beauty. For a perfect creation of beauty three elements are needed :
1. The fundamental element of beauty which is present in everything.
2. The pervading quality or Guna.
3. The expression or form.
Where these three are in agreement then there is the perfect expression of the Ananda.
Disciple : What is the utility of aesthetic refinement in spiritual development?
Sri Aurobindo : The aesthetic sense is easily purified and can then open the path ofapproach to the Supreme
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through beauty. It is very difficult to purify a rough and gross being.
12-10-1942
Disciple : We have heard, and partly known, that the experience of delight is possible on the higher planes. Is it possible to experience "beauty" on these planes?
Sri Aurobindo : Beauty and delight are inalienable in the ultimate analysis, or rather in the ultimate experience on the higher planes.
Disciple : Could experience of beauty be compatible with Shankara's conception of the Absolute?
Sri Aurobindo : In his conception experience of delight you can have, but beauty? I don't think.There is no Laxana – the quality which is characteristic – of beauty there in the Brahman according to Shankara. There is only the Self-existent and its Delight – white delight, if you like, but the colourful play of beauty would only be a figure in it and therefore unreal.
Disciple : Is form inseparable from the experience of beauty?
Sri Aurobindo : On the plane of matter it seems so, but it is not true on planes of consciousness above mind. There, beauty can be formless.
Disciple : There are people who experience deep peace but no delight in the Brahmic consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo : In my own case the SACHCHIDANAND as Brahman comes more easily as a constant experience and ANANDA – delight – comes in to complete it, so to say, Delight is the essential Reality of existence.
Disciple : But many people are satisfied with the experience of the immobile aspect of the Brahman.
Sri Aurobindo : It depends. If you approach the Absolute negatively – i.e. as a negation – you reach a more and more negative value. If you take up the positive side
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it leads you to a more and more positive value.
Disciple : Then why do the artists say that form is indispensable for art-creation?
Sri Aurobindo : We were speaking of the experience of beauty. But if you speak of art-creation then one can say that form is indispensable for that.
Disciple : Tagore agrees here that form is indispensable for the creation of beauty in art.
Sri Aurobindo : But even there the form which gives the experience of beauty is not something apart from the Spirit. In the experience of the Brahman,the essential beauty is there without which the thing would not be beautiful. In the experience of beauty you can perceive two distinct elements : the form and the spiritual element of beauty. But the formal beauty is only an expression of the spiritual beauty, it is not something quite separate. Of course, the mind can make a distinction and speak of them as two distinct things.
Disciple : What isthe connection between spirituality and art?
Sri Aurobindo : One can say thatspirituality is the basis of art. Art expresses, or tries to express, the soul of things. The true soul of things is the divine element in them. Then spirituality, which is the discipline to come into conscious contact with the Divine, has a place, and a big place, in art.
In a sense spirituality is the highest art, the art of life; for, it aims at creating a life of beauty pure in line, faultless in rhythm, replete with strength, illumined with light and vibrant with delight.
24-1-1939
Sri Aurobindo went into silence for a while and when he came out he began :
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“I was thinking how some races have the sense of beauty in their very bones. Judging from what is left to us, it seems our people once had a keen sense of beauty. For example, take poetry, or Indian wood-carving, which, I am afraid, is dying now. Greece and ancient Italy had the perception of beauty. The Japanese are a remarkable people – even the poorest have got the aesthetic sense. If they produce ugly things, it is only for export to other countries. I am afraid the Japanese are losing that sense now because of the general vulgarisation. In Germany Hitler must have crushed all fine things out of existence – German music, philosophy, etc. How can anything develop where there is no freedom? I hope Mussolini has kept some sense of art.
Disciple : He is very proud of Italians as a nation of artists! A friend of mine visited Italy, and found that the Italians still have a sense of beauty and art.
Sri Aurobindo : Of music also; Art and music are their passion. The mother had a remarkable experience. She was staying in North Italy for some time and was once playing on the organ all alone in a church. After she had finished, there was a big applause. She found that a crowd had gathered and was ecstatic in appreciation.
Disciple : Indian music, especially in the South, has been preserved in the temples.
Nishta (Miss Wilson) is all praise for many Indian things. She finds great beauty in the gait of Indian women. She told me, "You won't .understand it, but I have seen our European women and I can understand it better. Indian women seem to me born dancers, they have such a fine rhythm in their walk.
Sri Aurobindo : She is quite right. I suppose it is due to their having to carry pots on their heads.
Disciple : She also praises the coloured saris of our women and finds that the women have a sense of colour.
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Sri Aurobindo : I hope they are not giving it up under modern influence.
Disciple : Sari, though graceful. is not good enough for active work, it is inconvenient.
Sri Aurobindo : Why? The Romans conquered the world with their togas. Plenty of Indian women work with saris on. When this craze for utility – that is the modern tendency – comes, beauty dies; people now look at everything from the point of utility as if beauty were nothing.
Disciple : But beauty and utility can be combined, I believe. I have found at any rate, that the European dress for men gives one a push for work and activity, while the Indian dhoti gives lethargy and a sense of ease.
Sri Aurobindo : That does not prevent the European dress from being ugly. I have seen plenty of people leading an active life with the dhoti.
The most utilitarian dress is shorts and a shirt.
Disciple : But nowadays European ladies have made many innovations, they go about in shorts without stockings.
Sri Aurobindo : I see. At one time they used to cover the whole body except hands and face. I remember an incident in London. Bapubhai Majumdarwas coming down from the bath-room in his hotel with his feet bare. A lady who came out of her room suddenly saw him. She ran to the manager and complained that the gentleman was going about half naked in the hotel! The manager called Bapubhai and told him not to do so! Do you know this Bapubhai – He was at Baroda.
Disciple : Yes, he was seen once being stopped by police on the road for a breach of traffic rule. He gave such an eloquent lecture in English that the policeman was flabbergasted.
Sri Aurobindo : (laughing) That must be he : he was my
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first friend in Baroda. He took me to his house and I stayed there for some time. He was a nice man, only some would say "volatile and mercurial".
27-8-1926
(The other day there was a talk about the arūpa devas – Gods without form – and the rūpa devas and their planes. Sri Aurobindo explained that it was merely a mental way of dealing with those things. Beauty is not merely an abstraction of the mind. Of course, the mind can create a sort of division and think of beauty as an abstraction. It seems merely an idea without, as it were, any power behind it. But if you go to the plane above mind you find that all things that are abstractions in the mind are Powers and Realities there. There you find that beauty is a power of the Supreme.)
Disciple : I want to know what connection this power of beauty has with Vaishnavism. Bhakti begins with emotion. Is there a connection between Bhakti and this power of beauty?
Sri Aurobindo : How do you mean? I don't understand your question. Bhakti has not only the sense of beauty in it, there are many other elements besides.
Disciple : There is the emotional element but where or when does the element of beauty enter – at the beginning or at the end?
Sri Aurobindo : It may be at the beginning or at any other time. There is the emotional element, the element of faith, the element of love, of beauty, of ananda and so many other things.
Disciple : You said that "Beauty is a power of the Supreme". I want to have some idea of that power on the plane higher than the mental.
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Sri Aurobindo : Why on the higher plane only? Do you .think that beauty is not a power? Do you believe that it is a mental abstraction?
Disciple : I can understand that it is a power in a certain sense on the mental, vital and physical planes. But what is it on the plane higher than the mind?
Sri Aurobindo : Well, how can I convey an idea of it to you? Beauty is beauty everywhere and it is a power wherever it may be.
But what is your idea of beauty? What is beauty? Is it an abstraction?
Disciple : No, it is not an abstraction.
Sri Aurobindo : What is it then? When you say "There beauty in the rose," is it something apart from the rose itself? What do you mean by it?
Disciple : I mean it is a quality.
Sri Aurobindo : "Quality" is an abstract idea.
Disciple : I would say that it is not an idea but something connected with the life of the flower, something of the life-force in it.
Disciple : Whenever beauty of form is concerned, it is said that certain relations are required to be fulfilled, proportion, harmony, etc. Otherwise the form is not beautiful.
Sri Aurobindo : Well, that is not the whole of beauty. Neither is it the most essential element. You can say "That is how beauty expresses itself". But it is not the essence of beauty – lines, proportions etc. are there only as its supports, especially in the beauty of forms, not so much in other kinds of beauty. There is, for instance, beauty of emotion – of thought – of force – of Ananda etc. By observing the rules about line, proportion, rhythm, harmony etc, a man does not become an artist. Every time a new creator comes into the field of art he brings something which to others appears perhaps out of proportion. Then a time comes when people begin to see and discover
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new proportions and a new harmony. Even in music the same thing happens. For instance, when Wagner gave his music it sounded very unusual and, to some discordant. But at last they found harmony and rhythm and everything else.
Similarly poetry is not some arrangement of words or ideas, it is a power which goes forth from the being of the poet.
In other religions there is a certain insistence on moral virtues, therefore they did not put the same emphasis on beauty. But in India God is the All-beautiful.
Disciple : What is the relation of Beauty and devotion (Bhakti)?
Sri Aurobindo : In the path of devotion – Bhakti Marga – in India, God is regarded as the All-beautiful. In the case of other paths it is not so.
Disciple : There is an idea that for art limitation is necessary. There can be no art if there is no restraint and every great artist imposes his own limitations by himself.
Sri Aurobindo : Well, it is not always true. Take the lines and forms used by art. You can say that they serve to limit the expression and there are artists who produce works of art under that kind of restraint. But it is not always so. Take, for instance, Shakespeare. At first the idea was that in his work there is no measure and harmony. It was considered bizarre. Then they found that it was a work of great art. In a poet like Shakespeare the movement is not towards limitation but rather expression – a throwing himself out to cover everything.
And a work of art is not great unless the artist is able to express the infinite through the limitations, – unless the lines and forms are not overpassed, so to say. There must be beauty of line and form but that is only the primary basis, – the earth on which you stand, but it must go beyond and express something from within.
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That is what we mean when we say that a particular work of art is "cold", though you can see that the beauty of line and form – the technique – is perfect. The work may not be sufficiently "inspired". Take Greek art : it was their aim to put as much of inner beauty as they could in a limited form and line which had set standards. In India we had quite another standard.
Disciple : What is it in beauty that gives us delight?
Sri Aurobindo : Beauty is the Divine himself in his Anand-power seeking to express himself in perfect form. That is, perhaps, the only definition that could be given. Since you are particular about it one can say that there are several elements of beauty : one is the power of Anand that seeks expression, the other is the form – or you can say, the manner in which it expresses itself.
Disciple : I suppose it is also necessary that the physical instrument should be prepared so that it can express perfect beauty.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, the training of the physical instrument is absolutely essential because without it the work of art cannot take the perfect body.
Disciple : If we look at a man like Tagore, do you think that in a case like him also the physical instruments have to be trained, or can one say that the force which is working in such people creates its own instruments?
Sri Aurobindo : There are people who are born with their physical instrument ready. Even then a lot of training is necessary. Even if the force created its own instrument the work would be uneven – very good at times but very bad at other times.
Disciple : Tagore did a lot of work before he became established as a poet. .
Sri Aurobindo : Shakespeare studied all the existing dramas before he wrote his own. One cannot play the violin without training.
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Disciple : Would not the Higher Power develop even the physical instrument when it comes down?
Sri Aurobindo : It is a great advantage if you can start with a good instrument.
Disciple : But how is it that when a man appreciates beauty he is not conscious of it as an expression of God?
Sri Aurobindo : There are so many things of which man is not conscious. I am not speaking of what man feels, or sees or, is conscious of. I am speaking of what is behind.
Disciple : If a poet does not know the language he cannot be a great poet,
Sri Aurobindo : Nor can he invent rhythms unless he knows prosody. In art, as in everything else, training is necessary; one can develop the sense of beauty consciously.
Disciple : Have not the musicians got the sense of beauty inborn in them?
Sri Aurobindo : Not all. And even if it is there, much has to be done before it expresses itself perfectly. So many elements have to be brought together and harmonised before there can be the perfect expression.
Disciple : Does not, then, the expression become forced?
Sri Aurobindo : Do you mean to say that when a poet writes his lines and then revises them and finds that certain things ought to be changed he is becoming artificial, or that his poetry becomes forced ? Not at all.
Disciple : Does the artist get his form from the vital only?
Sri Aurobindo : No. But these arts are such that they require their stand in the vital. There may be other elements in them but the vital is indispensable. In fact, the highest poetry cannot come unless through the vital. One may take the elements from the mind or emotion or other parts according to necessity.
Disciple : How far is mind a factor in the process?
Sri Aurobindo : If you mean the intellectual mind it has a very little part – though it, too, has a part. The whole
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process is very complicated. The first impulse is given by the vital and then there is communication with the higher mind – the intuitivefaculty.Then something from there comes down to the heart and the artist again takes it up into the mind, and gives expression to it.
Disciple : That is to say, something from above comes down through intuition.
Sri Aurobindo : Yes, some power from above. I use the word "Intuition" in the general sense for all the faculties that act; more properly it is "Inspiration".
Disciple : In what way does the mind enter as a factor in the creation of poetry?
Sri Aurobindo : In the very highest poetry, the mind is silent; in other kinds, the mind is active but it is not the intellectual mind.
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