... and deeper aesthesis then which can answer even to the transcendent and feel too whatever of the transcendent or spiritual enters into the things of life, mind and sense. The business of the critical intellect is to appreciate and judge and here too it must judge; but it can judge and appreciate rightly here only if it first learns to see and sense inwardly and interpret. But it is dangerous for it... overhead inspiration and use that to wall in the inspiration; for it runs the risk of seeing the overhead inspiration step across its wall and pass on leaving it bewildered and at a loss. The mere critical intellect not touched by a rarer sight can do little here. We can take an extreme case, for in extreme cases certain incompatibilities come out more clearly. What might be called the Johnsonian critical... and in water and how can an ocean of light see divinely or otherwise? Anyhow, what meaning can there be in all this, it is a senseless mystical jargon." But, apart from these extremes, the mere critical intellect is likely to feel a distaste or an incomprehension with regard to mystical poetry even if that poetry is quite coherent in its ideas and well appointed in its language. It is bound to stumble ...
... deformative, excessive or defective, while it selects and finds sovereignly all that can bring out the full truth, the utter beauty, the inmost power. But this discrimination is not that of the critical intellect, nor is the harmony, proportion, relation it observes that which can be fixed by any set law of the critical reason; it exists in the Page 140 very nature and truth of the thing itself... critical vision and embody it in a fresh act of inspired creation or recreation after bringing himself back by its means into harmony with the light and law of his original creative initiation. The critical intellect has no direct or independent part in the means of the inspired creator of beauty. In the appreciation of beauty it has a part, but it is not even there the supreme judge or law-giver. The ...
... and penetrating Shavian sunshine. Shaw gets indeed dwarfed by Yeats when that poet is profound and mystical, but on the planes of politics and sociology and moral convention as well as of the critical intellect in general it is Yeats who becomes the pigmy - wholly unconvincing when he denies edge and elan to G. B. S. on his own grounds and pronounces him a long-winded bore or an empty meanderer. ...
... frantically searching for a guru who would help him to swim across the sea of ignorance which this human life is and attain liberation. He was, however, a teacher, and was endowed with a rather critical intellect. He used to say that a teacher would teach but could not easily learn from another teacher. Hence, however much he felt attracted towards a prospective guru, he would sooner or later notice some ...
... present, his creations and surroundings, a cognate effort to be unimpassioned, impersonal, scrupulous, sceptically interested and reflective. In poetry, however, it loses the cold accuracy of the critical intellect and assumes the artistic colour, emphasis, warmth of the constructive imagination: but even here there is the same tendency to a critical observation of man and things and world tendencies and ...
... carry a suggestion which I would not be able to accept; it might seem to indicate that the poet must have a "purpose" in whatever he writes and must be able to give a logical account of it to the critical intellect. That is surely not the way in which the poet or at least the mystic poet has to do his work. He does not himself deliberately choose or arrange word and rhythm but only sees it Page 322 ...
... a pity a genuine traveller like you of the via mystica does not follow to the full the finger of light Sri Aurobindo points ahead of us. Will you pardon my daring to suspect that the "critical intellect", which keeps you dissatisfied and which you wish to keep in action, omits to criticise certain magnificent spiritual philosophies of the past sufficiently and fails to interpret Sri Aurobindo ...
... out of spiritual experience and as the fruit of the spiritual seeking which all the religious movements of the past century have helped to generalise. It cannot spring, as in Europe, out of the critical intellect solely or as the fruit of scientific thought and knowledge. Nor has there been very much preparing force of original critical thought in nineteenth century India. The more original intellects ...
... impulses of creation, one of the most insistent demands and needs of the human mind, not only in poetry, but in thought itself and in spirit, has been to lessen the tyranny of the reasoning and critical intellect, to return to the power and sincerity of life and come by a greater deepness of the intuition of its soul of meaning. That is the most striking turn of all recent writing of any importance. ...
... obstruction, however, there is now some sense of progress prepared. 21 February 1917 The movement towards generalisation of ideality continues. The movement is towards elimination of the critical intellect, the mind of doubt, and its replacing by the ideal judgment. Obstruction of third chatusthaya has been strong for the last three days. Nothing fresh achieved. A strong preparation of advance ...
... of the substance of the Bible, Shankara's theories as familiar as the speculations of Teutonic thinkers and Kalidasa, Valmekie & Vyasa as near and common to the subject matter of the European critical intellect as Dante or Homer. It is the difficulties of presentation that prevent a more rapid and complete commingling. Page 393 ...
... takes anything on trust, and his writings evidence his relentless intellectual curiosity and inquiring mind. Amal Kiran, I believe, is essentially a poet in whom the creative inner-view and the critical intellect coincide. In what follows, I have attempted an exploration of the interface of creativity and the human mind in the line of the intuitive methodology that informs Amal Kiran's readings. The idea ...
... lack): "I really long to praise, Dilip! Some times it even grows on me like hunger or thirst. But I can't alas! Many there are of whom I feel like speaking appreciatively. But as I rush on, my critical intellect protests aghast and then I have to weigh my words. The result — a sorry tribute which often does more harm than good — to obviate which I have to keep silent rather than dole out an inadequate ...
... its highest, creation comes out of inspiration from above the intellect. But very seldom the whole body of poetry is received direct from the original higher source. The mind, the brain, the critical intellect and many other faculties generally mix up with the Over-head inspiration and mar the purity of the original form. It is when the Intuitive Soul can receive both the soul and the body, the spirt ...
... impossible. And even a blind and ignorant faith is a better possession than the sceptical doubt which turns its back on our spiritual possibilities or the constant carping of the narrow pettily critical uncreative intellect, asūyā , which pursues our endeavour with a paralysing incertitude. The seeker of the integral Yoga must however conquer both these imperfections. The thing to which he has given his assent... which receives the influence and answers to the call is not so much the intellect, the heart or the life mind, but the inner soul which better knows the truth of its own destiny and mission. The circumstances that provoke our first entry into the path are not the real index of the thing that is at work in us. There the intellect, the heart, or the desires of the life mind may take a prominent place... and we should not allow our faith to be disconcerted by the discovery of its errors or imagine that because the beliefs of the intellect which aided Page 776 us were too hasty and positive, therefore the fundamental faith in the soul was invalid. The human intellect is too much afraid of error precisely because it is too much attached to a premature sense of certitude and a too hasty eagerness ...
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