... 24 July 1936 Mystic Poetry Mystic poetry does not mean anything exactly or apparently; it means things suggestively and reconditely,—things that are not known and classified by the intellect. What you are asking is to reduce what is behind to intellectual terms, which is to make it something quite different from itself. 3 December 1936 Page 87 Mystic poetry has a perfectly concrete... give it) it is obviously only a metaphorical figure for a ray of Light, Consciousness etc. 29 December 1936 Page 92 Some Problems in Writing Mystic Poetry This is the real stumbling-block of mystic poetry and specially mystic poetry of this kind. The mystic feels real and present, even ever-present to his experience, intimate to his being, truths which to the ordinary reader are intellectual... of the deeper significance (if there is any)—but in mystic poetry, often though not always, one has to catch the bhāva of the deeper significance directly through the figures and by that arrive at the form of the intellectual meaning or else share in the inner vision, whichever may be the thing to be conveyed by the poem. Mystic poetry can be written from any plane, provided the writer gets ...
... written Savitri at all. It is in fact for myself that I have written it and for those who can lend themselves to the subject-matter, images, technique of mystic poetry. This is the real stumbling-block of mystic poetry and specially mystic poetry of this kind. 21 The mystic feels real and present, even ever-present to his experience, intimate to his being, truths which to the ordinary reader are... necessary for the dawn's inner significance. Moreover what becomes of the slow lingering rhythm of my line which is absolutely indispensable? Do not forget that the Savitri is an experiment in mystic poetry, spiritual poetry cast into a symbolic figure. Done on this scale, it is really a new attempt and cannot be hampered by old ideas of technique except when they are assimilable. Least of all by standards... conceal their elements of powerful technique, they show rather a vivid richness or vehemence, forcing language to its utmost power of expression. That has to be done still more in this kind of mystic poetry. I cannot bring out the spiritual objectivity if I have to be miserly about epithets, images, or deny myself the use of all available resources of sound significance. The double epithets are ...
... 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... 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. Page 231 One is at liberty to use any symbol or image but what one says... 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. ...
... into a different form and raised to a different pitch." 5 The poem stands as a new mystical poetry with a new vision and expression of things as Sri Aurobindo explains in response to a criticism. Mystic poetry is like unmasking the Divine, unveiling the great Mystery or part of it Savitri is such a poem. "It expresses or tries to express a total and many-sided vision and experience of all the planes... visions may appear as "technical jargon" or "intellectual abstractions or metaphysical speculations" if one has not come face to face with or plunged into their realities. The real stumbling-block of mystic poetry of this kind is that the "mystic feels real and present, even ever present to his experience, intimate to his being, truths which to the ordinary reader are intellectual abstractions or metaphysical... sustained symbols in the Symbol Dawn. Sri Aurobindo explains the technique of symbol-making as follows: "Rapid transitions from one image to another are a constant feature of Savitri as in most mystic poetry. I am not here building a long sustained single picture of the Dawn with a single continuous image or variations of the same image. I am describing a rapid series of transitions, piling one suggestion ...
... necessary? SRI AUROBINDO: No. One need not have personal experience for such poetry. NIRODBARAN: You once compared mystic poetry to moon light and spiritual poetry to sunlight. SRI AUROBINDO: No, I meant occult poetry to be like moonlight. There are two kinds of mystic poetry: occult-mystic and spiritual-mystic. That poem of mine, "Trance", with its moon and star, or my "Bird of Fire" is occ... higher whatever is manifested and brings out all that has remained latent, unmanifested. Of course, one has to be familiar with the symbols; then the thing becomes quite clear. NIRODBARAN: But mystic poetry is bound to be a little hazy and vague, at least to those who are not mystically minded. Tagore also has written simple and clear poems in his Gitanjali: for example, "Amar matha nata kare dao" ...
... comes. By the way, I had a talk with D regarding mystic poetry. He doesn't seem to feel much in Blake's poetry. It simply means that he has not the mystic mind. It does not make any difference to the value or beauty of Blake's poetry. And mystic poetry as a whole appeals to him less than poems with concrete meaning. Mystic poetry has a perfectly concrete meaning, much more than intellectual... an inner thrill, tremor and quiver? What's the use of saying poetry, with a universal sweep like that? It is a question of mystic poetry, not of all poetry. Perhaps one must not use the intellect to understand what exactly or apparently is meant? Mystic poetry does not mean anything exactly or apparently; it means things suggestively and reconditely,—things that are not known and classified... .." 55 How is this less concrete than the other? Or "I have harvested lots of paddy And while I was harvesting came down the rains." 56 Again how is it less concrete? Mystic poetry will ever remain for him misty and mysterious and occupy a second place. That is another matter. It is a question of personal idiosyncrasy. There are people who thrill to Pope and find Keats ...
... lustily. For I have had a feeling often (though not always) that mystic poetry hides behind the symbols the author's comparative inability to find a proper expression for what he has vaguely felt. I have often seen that when the feeling is very concrete I can express what I can't if it isn't concrete enough. Much of the mystic poetry of Tagore during the last few years we are all altogether baffled... faintly— glimmers but does not illumine. His prose- poetry of late are often altogether cryptic.... And now I find you say also something kindred in the passage I quoted—calling the source of much mystic poetry (though not all, mind you) "revelation” but not "inspiration”. Apropos, does not inspiration mean something more intimate to our conscious than a visioned "revelation” which is perforce somewhat... the last verse will, happily, exemplify what I mean. I don't doubt she felt something but has she adequately conveyed it with a more adequate power of expression ? I am not unsympathetic to mystic poetry (I can't possibly be) but I am, I fear, a little fond of clarity and as such perhaps a little apathetic to symbolic esotericism. But enough. Now do say something radiant to dissipate my hazes ...
... his Yoga from his spiritual collaborator, the Mother. When Sri Aurobindo turned from ratiocinative arguments in The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga to the seemingly perilous paths of mystic poetry in Savitri, he was not giving in to fanciful conjectures. Even as epics of action record a racial experience, Savitri records a 3 Ibid., p. 704. 4 The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL... or understanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch; as I have pointed out, there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. 6 Though Sri Aurobindo said that Savitri is "only an attempt to render into poetry a symbol of things occult and spiritual," he was not going to give us broken images, constructs that ...
... pursued by God. SATYENDRA: Thompson had some experience of what he has written. SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, yes. NIRODBARAN: It seems to me that Nishikanto is not quite a success in what is called mystic poetry. SRI AUROBINDO: What do you mean by "mystic"? NIRODBARAN: I can't define it—it is, say, Blake's poetry or J's. SRI AUROBINDO: If you mean "occult", Nishikanto hasn't tried much in that... expression of the essence of things hidden behind. NIRODBARAN: I mean the expression of the spiritual truth behind by means of symbols. SRI AUROBINDO: Symbolic, then. There are various kinds of mystic poetry. EVENING NIRODBARAN: It seems difficult to have creative force in mystic symbolic poetry. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is difficult, but not impossible. NIRODBARAN: Is there any creative force ...
... towards the end of an era of decline in the Indian consciousness, almost towards the close of what is called the Buddhist period, but it was born with a veritable crown on its head. For it was sheer mystic poetry, mystic in substance, mystic in manner and expression. The poets were themselves mystics, that is to say spiritual seekers, sadhaks -they were called Siddhas or Siddhacharyas. They told of their... somewhere in the fourteenth century. That wave too subsided and retired into the background, leaving in interregnum again of a century or more till it showed itself once more in another volume of mystic poetry in the hands of a new type of spiritual practitioners. They were the Yogis and Fakirs, and although of a popular type, yet possessing nuggets of gold in their utterances, and they formed a large ...
... kavi, the anandamaya, and the sahrdaya? 44 We have so far tried to see the filiations between 'overhead' poetry, mantric poetry, and mystic poetry. All 'overhead' poetry is not mystic poetry, neither is all mystic poetry necessarily mantric. At the top, at the very top, 'overhead' poetry is mantric as well as mystic. It is marked by the highest pitch of flight, the most radiant... Savitri IV Mystic Poetry and the Mantra If overhead poetry is the high-ranging Himalayas, then the mantra is their ultimate peak, Everest itself. Rhythm, verbal form, thought-substance, thought's radiant soul-quality, all fuse in the mantra to produce the effect of an incantation. When a Vedic rishi articulates a mantra, it really surges... samadhi when, Page 301 "in the language of psychoanalysis the ego returns to the primal rhythm." 30 This really brings us to the region of mysticism and mystic poetry. While, of course, it is convenient to classify the mystical planes broadly as occult, psychic and spiritual; 31 while all these planes are equally beyond speculative reason, it is nevertheless ...
... Evolution and the Earthly Destiny Mystic Poetry I WOULD like to make a distinction between mystic poetry and spiritual poetry. To equate mysticism and spirituality is not always happy or even correct. Thus, when Tagore sings: Who comes along singing and steering his boat? It seems a face familiar. He goes in full sail, turns nor... profane consciousness, or of the consciousness of another domain, idealistic or philosophical or even occult, puts on or imitates spirit's language and manner, we have what we propose to call mystic poetry proper. When Samain sings of the body of the dancer: Et Pannyre devient fleur,flamme, papillon!... Comme au travers d'une eau soyeuse et continue; Dans un divin eclair... the Christ calling the Church or God appealing to the human soul or one can simply find in it nothing more than a man pining for his woman. Anyhow I would not call it spiritual poetry or even mystic poetry. For in itself it does not carry any double or oblique meaning, there is no suggestion that it is applicable to other fields or domains of consciousness: it is, as it were, monovalent. An allegory ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2 Mystic Poetry I WOULD like to make a distinction between mystic poetry and spiritual poetry. To equate mysticism and spirituality is not always happy or even correct. Thus, when Tagore sings: Who comes along singing and steering his boat? It seems a face familiar. He goes in full sail... a profane consciousness, or of the consciousness of another domain, idealistic or philosophical or even occult, puts on or imitates spirit's language and manner, we have what we propose to call mystic poetry proper. When Samain sings of the body of the dancer: Et Pannyre devient fleur, flamme, papillon! ... Comme au travers d'une eau soyeuse et continue; Dans un divin éclair,... is the Christ calling the Church or God appealing to the human soul or one can simply find in it nothing more than a man pining for his woman. Anyhow I would not call it spiritual poetry or even mystic poetry. For in itself it does not carry any double or oblique meaning, there is no suggestion that it is applicable to other fields or domains of consciousness: it is, as it were, monovalent. An allegory ...
... Divine. Surmise and expectancy were at fever-pitch when the August 1946 issue of Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual carried the first Canto 'The Symbol Dawn', along with Sri Aurobindo's essay on Mystic Poetry; and the Advent (August 1946) published fifty lines from Canto IV ('The Secret Knowledge'). How packed with epiphanic suggestiveness was the opening asseveration: It was the hour before the... dynamics of the transformation. The truths of philosophy are abstractions to be cognised by the ratiocinative mind, but the truths of poetry are to be experienced. And this is equally true of mystic poetry, which is verily of the stuff of spirituality. For Sri Aurobindo, spirituality meant no escape from reality, from the demands of life here and now; spirituality was but a creative force by means... is not of the common kind and is often very far from what the general human mind sees and experiences....there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. 63 For example, when objection was taken to Sri Aurobindo's impressionistic description of the earth - Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space, Its formless stupor ...
... and exclaimed: "Oh, I didn't know that such things could happen. Does one sprain the brain also?" I had no explanation to give. My phrase was not quite meant to be explained. It was a piece of mystic poetry, or at least of mystic verse, since it had rhyme but no reason. I wore a serene and far-away smile on my face instead of answering. Unfortunately the silent smile served as an answer which I had... ascribes to the highest spiritual poetry which is capable of expressing fully the supreme experience with which it deals. He says: "I meant to contrast the veiled utterance of what is usually called mystic poetry with the luminous and assured clarity of the fully expressed spiritual experience. I did not mean to contrast it with the mental clarity which is aimed at usually by poetry in which the intelligence... Romantic Poetry. Of course there are other distinguishing qualities too, but these are the relevant ones in our discussion. Most of the finest poetry of the world is of this kind. But mystic Page 220 poetry tries to submerge the intellect in the supra-intellectual. And it does so not by attaining the supra-intellectual but by standing overwhelmed by the strange light and the strange shadow ...
... etc., all have symbolic meanings. 144 And it is also the nature of mystic Page 336 poetry to resort to multiple symbols, linked imagery and mixed metaphors. Above all, as in the opening canto, "...rapid transitions from one image to another are a constant feature in Savitri as in most mystic poetry." 145 Besides the 'thematic content' and the symbolic... different thing. "The poetry of mysticism",says Evelyn Underhill, "may de defined on the one hand as a temperamental reaction to the vision of Reality: on the other, as a form of prophecy." 140 Of mystic poetry, with particular reference to Savitri, Sri Aurobindo writes: The mystic Muse is more of an inspired Bacchante of the Dionysian wine than an orderly housewife. 141 ... The attempt at mystical spiritual poetry of the kind I am at demands above all a spiritual objectivity, an intense psycho physical concreteness. 143 Mystic poetry like Sri Aurobindo's Savitri demands concentrated attention from the reader. Where it is most articulate it is charged with the overhead afflatus, and the apparent unconventionality may itself ...
... dynamics of the transformation. The truths of philosophy are abstractions to be cognised by the ratiocinative mind, but the truths of poetry are to be experienced. And this is equally true of mystic poetry, which is verily of the stuff of spirituality. For Sri Aurobindo, spirituality meant no escape from reality, from the demands of life here and now; spirituality was but a creative force by means... not of the common kind and is often very far from what the general human mind sees and experiences... there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. 55 For example, when objection was taken to Sri Aurobindo's impressionistic description of the earth Athwart the vain enormous trance of Space, Its formless stupor without ... 'understanding' of these constituents of the human heritage? This applies even more, perhaps, to a cosmic epic like Savitri, which Sri Aurobindo himself once described as "an experiment in mystic poetry, spiritual poetry cast into a symbolic figure." 77 Attentive readers of Savitri who were reasonably familiar with the principal landmarks of Sri Aurobindo's life could no doubt see that ...
... sweet and heroic. Sri Aurobindo had seen the blank verse form of the past and he had no intention to repeat its ways, methods or styles. This pattern he chose could be used for all types of mystic poetry, for narrative verse, for all kinds of lyrical or epical forms. We can distinguish, not as in Milton's heroic style, or as in the heroic couplet of Pope or as in the lyrical verse of Keats, a... his verse form while the other is complex in his poetic execution. If we analyse Sri Aurobindo's verse, we are struck by its simplicity; and yet such simplicity does express a miraculous mystic poetry. That is because he does not allow a set convention, dogma or heritage to dominate him, while Milton has his fixed code of poetics, his laws of diction and his rhetorical principles. Sri Aurobindo... personality. It is, to use psychological terms, transference of the personality of one to another which may have no distinct relation or association with it. Such a process is indeed necessary in mystic poetry owing to its very nature that is opposed to the epic or dramatic and needs aids to undo its likely effect of abstraction. Milton employs it as a rare and passing feature but Sri Aurobindo utilises ...
... not central to these other essays. I would have loved to see at least his essay entitled "Mystic Poetry" (Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta: Vol. II, pp. 64-81) included in this volume, for it clarifies the distinction between different kinds of mystic poetry and also the distinction between mystic poetry, spiritual poetry, philosophic poetry and religious poetry. This is a distinction very much ...
... of a high, a large or a deep abiding ecstasy. 49 It is also necessary to remember that all overhead poetry is not necessarily mystic poetry, and all mystic poetry is not necessarily mantric poetry. At the overhead heights, of course, mystic poetry born of the utter experience of Reality irresistibly breaks out as the mantra which is experience, recordation and communication in one. ...
... n or understanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch; as I have pointed out, there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. Moreover if it is really new in kind, it may employ a new technique, not perhaps absolutely new, but new in some or many of its elements: in that case old rules and canons and standards may be... feeling and void of spiritual experience; they are, Page 349 it seems, mere mental work, full of intellectually constructed images and therefore without the genuine value of spiritual or mystic poetry. Well, then, what is the upshot? What have I to decide as a result of my aesthetic examination of conscience? It is true that there are voices on the other side, not only from my disciples but ...
... dimension the time thus spent becomes itself a poem — a poem in time. This approach bears abundant fruit specially with mystic poetry. And Amal is a mystic poet par excellence - a poet whose visionary intensity has no boundaries. Mystic poetry can sometimes look rather abstract and difficult to grasp. But if one can once catch the central thread then line after line unfolds ...
... or understanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch; as I have pointed out, there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. Moreover if it is really new in kind, it may employ a new technique, not perhaps absolutely new, but new in some or many of its elements: in that case old rules and canons and standards may... void of spiritual experience; they are, it seems, mere mental work, Page 18 full of intellectually constructed images and therefore without the genuine value of spiritual or mystic poetry. Well, then, what is the upshot? What have I to decide as a result of my aesthetic examination of conscience? It is true that there are voices on the other side, not only from my disciples ...
... himself had a great admiration for it and praises it eloquently and unreservedly. "The utterances of the greatest seers... touch the most extraordinary heights and amplitudes of a sublime and mystic poetry and there are poems like the Hymn of Creation that move in a powerful clarity on the summits of thought on which the Upanishads lived constantly with a more sustained breathing." 120 ... of the New Poetry: Kalidasian and Upanishadic. We cannot judge or appreciate the poetry of Savitri in terms of older poetry and aesthetics. It is, says Sri Aurobindo, "an experiment in mystic poetry, spiritual poetry cast into a symbolic figure... it is really a new attempt and cannot be hampered by old ideas of technique except when they are assimilable." 148 This is not the place for ...
... "It is when the thing seen is spiritually lived and has an independent vivid reality of its own which exceeds any conceptual significance it may have on the surface that it is mystic."—"In mystic poetry the symbol ought to be as much as possible the natural body of the inner truth or vision, itself an intimate part of the experience."—"Symbols may be of various kinds; there are those that are ... and true. 1 Both lines have a strong revelatory power. Line 9—Intuition." General remark apropos of the poem's manner: "A bold directness and a concrete audacity of image tells best in mystic poetry—it makes the thing live." (You once distinguished two Overmind levels: mental and gnostic, the latter being the Overmind proper, the former like a massive and widened Intuition. Now you ...
... it expresses or tries to express a total and many-sided vision and experience of all the planes of being and their action upon each other. 87 Savitri is an experiment in mystic poetry, spiritual poetry cast into a symbolic figure...it is really a new attempt and cannot be hampered by old ideas of technique except when they are assimilable...' 88 I was... the common kind and is often very far from what the general human mind sees and experiences.. .there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. Moreover if it is really new in kind, it may employ a new technique.. .new in some or many of its elements. 90 ...if I have not poetical genius, at least I can claim a sufficient ...
... the end of an era of decline in the Indian consciousness, almost towards the close of what is called the Buddhist period, but it was born with a veritable crown on its head. For it was sheer mystic poetry, mystic in substance, mystic in manner and expression. The poets were themselves mystics, that is to say spiritual seekers, sadhaks—they were called siddhas or siddhacharyas. They told of their... somewhere in the fourteenth century. That wave too subsided and retired into the background, leaving an interregnum again of a century or more till it showed itself once more in another volume of mystic poetry in the hands of a new type of spiritual practitioners. They Page 82 were the Yogis and Fakirs, and although of a popular type, yet possessing nuggets of gold in their utterances ...
... individual vision. The utterances of the greatest seers, Vishwamitra, Vamadeva, Page 326 Dirghatamas and many others, touch the most extraordinary heights and amplitudes of a sublime and mystic poetry and there are poems like the Hymn of Creation that move in a powerful clarity on the summits of thought on which the Upanishads lived constantly with a more sustained breathing. The mind of ancient ...
... conceal their elements of powerful technique, they show rather a vivid richness or vehemence, forcing language to its utmost power of expression. That has to be done still more in this kind of mystic poetry. I cannot bring out the spiritual objectivity if I have to be miserly about epithets, images, or deny myself the use of all available resources of sound significance. The double epithets are ...
... the same time, his pronouncement in another letter must be remembered. There, while granting that even mysticism is not a monopoly of overhead verse, he ascribes to this verse a special virtue: "Mystic poetry can be Written from any plane, provided the writer gets an inspiration from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit ...
... infinite, therefore the mystic's vision of the spirit too takes many forms. And the poetry that expresses the vision cannot easily be grasped within a clear definition. However, when we study mystic poetry we discern two main movements: the psychic and the spiritual. The psychic is an inward movement "to the inner being, the Self or Divinity within us," and the spiritual is an upward movement "to ...
... n or understanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch: as I have pointed out, there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry,’ 8 Sri Aurobindo wrote to K.D. Sethna. As we know, Sri Aurobindo held Sethna in high esteem as a poet, and it was with him that he conducted an extensive correspondence about Savitri and to ...
... note rang tome so [true ?]. That was why I have been so deeply stirred by Harm's on A.E. Do write a sonnet at least on him Guru—don't you think he deserves it—in these days when people pooh-pooh mystic poetry (as Thomson wrote to me) when A.E. still stood to his guns on his lonely heights. Why you really set so much store by Yeats I can't gather—he is often so impossibly obscure. But A.E. is never so ...
... conceal their elements of powerful technique, they show rather a vivid richness or vehemence, forcing language to its utmost power of expression. That has to be done still more in this kind of mystic poetry. I cannot bring out the spiritual objectivity if I have to be miserly about epithets, images, or deny myself the use of all available resources of sound-significance. The double epithets are in ...
... expect appreciation or understanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch; ...there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. Moreover, if it is really new in kind, it may employ a new technique, not perhaps absolutely new, but new in some or many of its elements: in that case old rules and canons and standards may ...
... elements of powerful technique, they show rather a vivid richness or vehemence, forcing language to its utmost power of expression. That has to be done still more in this kind of mystic Page 308 poetry. I cannot bring out the spiritual objectivity if I have to be miserly about epithets, images, or deny myself the use of all available resources of sound-significance. The double epithets ...
... Sri Aurobindo with a clean heart-tablet on which no other holy figure had been etched. This was assuredly one of the reasons why he received so much from Gurudev, especially in insight into mystic poetry. I do not know personally of any living critic who has read Sri Aurobindo's poetry so thoroughly and acquired such a deep grasp of both its poetical beauty and technical mastery, insomuch ...
... point in a letter: "Truth first - a technique expressive of the truth in the forms of beauty has to be found, if it does not exist." 2 Elsewhere Sri Aurobindo says that the technique of mystic poetry cannot be taught. In Sethna's poetry, especially in Altar and Flame , love is a thing of beauty maturing like the maturing moon: We love, but scarcely know What they ...
... Page 383 minimising the inner significance, it is not perhaps the greatest achievement. (That is, I suppose, Nolini's contention.) But there is room for more than one kind of spiritual or mystic poetry. One has to avoid mere mistiness or vagueness, one has to be true, vivid, profound in one's images; but, that given, I feel free to write either as in Nirvana or Transformation , giving a clear ...
... of decadence. The more perfectly intuitive poetry of the future, supposing it to emerge successfully from its present incubation, find itself and develop all its possibilities, will not be a mystic poetry recondite in expression or quite remote from the earthly life of man. Some element of the kind may be there; for always when we open into these fields, mysteries more than the Orphic or the Eleusinian ...
... and near and intimate poetic knowledge and vision and feeling which will continue to embrace more and more, no longer only the more exceptional inner states and touches which are the domain of mystic poetry, but everything in our inner and outer existence until all life and experience has been brought within the mould of the spiritual sense and the spiritual interpretation. A poetry of this kind will ...
... must not expect appreciation or understanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch; there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. Moreover, if it is really new in kind, it may employ a new technique, not perhaps absolutely new, but new in some or many of its elements; in that case old rules and canons and standards may be ...
... classes of men, from the struggling neophyte to those who are far advanced intellectually. There is nothing hazy or obscure in what he writes. It may be that the true spirit of his philosophy and mystic poetry will be unintelligible to all except the initiates, but there is scope for all for a clear intellectual comprehension. His approaches are many sided and suited to different tastes and capacities ...
... Poetry" as well as the correspondence centering on Savitri . All these constituted the last writings dictated by him. They are a work apart and form a permanent contribution to our appreciation of mystic poetry in general and Savitri in particular. It seemed to me that he did this lengthy work with much zest and was glad to have an opportunity to shed some light on his unique poem for its proper und ...
... been indulging in vain imaginations, perhaps with the idea of increasing your concrete imaginative faculty and fitting you for understanding the unintelligible. As you have now much to do with mystic poetry, it may be necessary. But why object to being pulverised? Once reduced to powder, think how useful you may be as a medicine, Pulv. Nirod. gr. II. Anyhow disburden your soul of the weight. I am ...
... wonder how much time Sri Aurobindo graciously gave to his disciple in discussing all the minutiae of poetic creation and expression. Sethna received so much from his Guru, especially in insight into mystic poetry. Amal Kiran gratefully remembers how Sri Aurobindo was insistent on his disciple's writing always at his highest. Though quite charitable about Amal's less inspired efforts, he never wavered ...
... sublimities of his individual vision. The utterances of the greatest seers, Vishwamitra, Vamadeva, Dirghatamas and many others. touch the most extraordinary heights and amplitudes of a sublime and mystic poetry and there are poems like the Hymn of Creation that move in a powerful clarity on the summits of thought on which the Upanishads lived constantly with a more sustained breathing. The mind of ancient ...
... 303-304; on overhead poetry, 309-310; overhead influence in Sri Aurobindo's poetry, 317-322; Sri Aurobindo's aims in writing Savitri, 323-325; his yogic experiences, 327-328; Sri Aurobindo on mystic poetry & his blank verse line, 339-349; Sri Aurobindo' similes in Savitri,349-355; his style in Savitri, 355-361; his preoccupation with the dawn idea, 361-368; his conception of Savitri's personality ...
... Yes, for the first two. In (1) there is something from the Intuition also and in (2) from the Overmind. 21 March 1935 Is this table showing the degrees of style and rhythm of revelation in mystic poetry correct?— 1) solitary thinkings; such as dodge Conception to the very bourne of heaven (Higher Mind) 1 2) I saw Eternity the other night Like a great Ring of pure and ...
... Blake all together. As for the Old Testament, it expresses not mystic but religious experience which is quite another affair altogether. I am afraid Swaminathan's capacities for responding to mystic poetry are not very brilliant. His reference to Blake shows Page 252 that—for Blake is an acid test for critics in this matter. However these are only passing comments. I shall consider the ...
... be expressed as well by other symbols, and the same symbol may also express many different ideas. The Effect of Symbolic Visions It is the same with the symbols in Yoga [ as with images in mystic poetry ]. One puts an intellectual label on the "White Light" and the mind is satisfied and says, "Now I know all about it; it is the pure divine Consciousness light," and really it knows nothing. But ...
... a remarkably successful fusion of the supporting object (physical symbol) into the revealing or transmuting image and the image into the object, which is part of the highest art of symbolic or mystic poetry. Heard before? If you refer to elements of the rhythm, words or phrases here and there, or images used before though not in the same way, where is the poetry in so old and rich a literature as the ...
... brought home, with an inspired force which a neater language could not have had, the exact feeling and idea that he wanted to bring out. Still more scared would the Johnsonian be by any occult or mystic poetry. The Veda, for instance, uses with what seems like a deliberate recklessness the mixture, at least the association of disparate images, of things not associated together in the material world which ...
... reckoned by the plaudits or the reactions of the greatest number. I am only just reading Khagen Mitra's স্বাজাত্য―this is only a splenetic comment on your quotation from Tagore. 2 November 1936 Mystic poetry will ever remain for Tagore mystic and mysterious and occupy a second place. That is another matter. It is a question of personal idiosyncrasy. There are people who thrill to Pope and find Keats ...
... time, his pronouncement in another letter must be remembered. There, while granting that even mysticism is not a monopoly of overhead verse, he ascribes to this verse a special virtue: "Mystic poetry can be written from any plane, provided the writer gets an inspiration from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit ...
... Infinite, the Eternal, the Divine by a poet drawing upon any source for his inspiration, spiritual poetry will break forth. If one goes below the surface of things into the inner consciousness, mystic poetry will emerge with its subtleties and shadows from any level. No doubt, the Psychic will yield the sweetest secrets of the spiritual and the mystic, and the Overhead the amplest. But genuine stuff ...
... "It is when the thing seen is spiritually lived and has an independent vivid reality of its own which exceeds any conceptual significance it may have on the surface that it is mystic."—"In mystic poetry the symbol ought to be as much as possible the natural body of the inner truth or vision, itself an intimate part of the experience." —"Symbols may be of various kinds; there are those that are ...
... and true. 1 Both lines have a strong revelatory power. Line 9—Intuition." General remark apropos of the poem's manner: "A bold directness and a concrete audacity of image tells best in mystic poetry—it makes the thing live." (You once distinguished two Overmind levels: mental and gnostic, the latter being the Overmind proper, the former like a massive and widened Intuition. Now you ...
... poetry, and a pointer to the direction in which future poetry will evolve. At one time Sri Aurobindo himself thought of writing in some detail on the aesthetic and technical nature of mystic poetry of the future and on Savitri in particular. We think that the Master's illuminating correspondence with Amal partially fulfils that necessity. Sri Aurobindo had made Amal a political ...
... 'exceedingly fine' and 'magnificent' quite often ? Fortunately for us, neither Sethna nor Sri Aurobindo are clique-ridden. Ready to face criticism, yes! For Sethna knows very well that mystic poetry has to survive in a highly critical soil. Besides, this is the ruthless age of science and technology. Sethna has equipped himself with the latest in literature, history, science, sociology ...
... are no human plunderers but demoniac beings, and their forts metaphors for occult centres of massive resistance to the Aryans' quest of soul and God, must we be prevented from seeing behind the mystic poetry a struggle on the physical plane? Just as the Rishis took the details of the material life around them to figure forth the vicissitudes of the inner adventure, just as there were physical animals ...
... are rich, the tunes enchantingly musical, phrasing rapturous and forceful, imagery bold and vivid, technique lending itself to the call of the Muse. It is one of the most lyrical moments of mystic poetry, powerfully evocative in shades and thoughts and contents, bringing the full subtlety of the parable to us: A small bird crimson-hued Among great realms of green Fed on their ...
... in this one, condensed thought with magic expression flows down from the great heights above. The poet implies that just as the best diamonds are colourless and flawless so, in a similar manner, mystic poetry should not be tainted and flawed by the base colours of life. Page 264 Though diamonds and gold enjoy a reverential attitude, rubies and pearls do not seem to fare well. Here ...
... consciousness. Aren't we, the readers, grateful beneficiaries of this magnificent gift, thanks to Amal, who could draw out from Sri Aurobindo the great wealth of innumerable rarest gems of this mystic poetry by his dogged persistence and pointed intellectual questionings. It is a greater delight to read the mantric chant of Savitri , filling us with its splendour and glory revealed by Sri Aurobindo ...
... or understanding from the general public or even from many at the first touch; as I have pointed out, there must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry. 5 He tries to capture in these lines a vision caught directly from the heights and depths and breadths of a more than human consciousness. The language too is austere and direct and ...
... There is a difference between symbolism and allegory. Allegory is when a quality or other abstract thing is personalised—symbolism is when a living truth is given an image or figure—in mystic poetry a living truth is a living image or figure. Allegory is an intellectual form for nobody believes in the personalisation of the abstract quality, it is only a poetic device. Symbolism supposes that ...
... comes after. Sri Aurobindo discovered in the utterances of the greatest seers Vishwamitra, Vamadeva, Dirghatamas and many others, the most extraordinary heights and amplitudes of a sublime and mystic poetry. Sri Aurobindo concluded that the mind of ancient India did not err when it traced back all its philosophy, religion and essential things of its culture to these seer poets; for he found that all ...
... and exclaimed: "Oh, I didn't know that such things could happen. Does one sprain the brain also?" I had no explanation to give. My phrase was not quite meant to be explained. It was a piece of mystic poetry, or at least of mystic verse, since it had rhyme but no reason. I wore a serene and far-away smile on my face instead of answering. Unfortunately the silent smile served as an answer which I had ...
... every poet writes always in the same style, repeats the same vision of things in "different garbs". In connection with J's poetry, you had said long ago that there is a danger of repeating in mystic poetry. The danger but not the necessity. You know when Sahana sent some of her poems to Tagore, he said that the world creation is full of a variety of rasa. The poet's mind should not be confined ...
... been indulging in vain imaginations, perhaps with the idea of increasing your concrete imaginative faculty and fitting you for understanding the unintelligible. As you have now much to do with mystic poetry, it may be necessary. But why object to being pulverised? Once reduced to powder, think how useful you may be as a medicine, Pulv. Nirod. gr II. Anyhow disburden your soul of the weight. I am not ...
... suppose. SRI AUROBINDO: As they say in the Upanishad, the Supreme Being with the golden beard, etc. When Sri Aurobindo was lying down, Nirodbaran read to him a letter from Tagore to Sahana on mystic poetry. NIRODBARAN: Tagore says: "Mostly we see that those whose spiritual realisation is new cannot express that new experience in the simple and easy old ways. In their manner of expression there ...
... can at least approach this task with due humility. "There must be a new extension of consciousness and aesthesis," says Sri Aurobindo elsewhere, "to appreciate a new kind of mystic poetry." 126 At any rate, patience, receptiveness and humility may be expected to pave the way towards an appreciation of this great epic, this symphonic recordation of a great yogi's mystic apprehension ...
... the general reader I could not have written Savitri at all. It is in fact for myself that I have written it and for those who can lend themselves to the subject-matter, images, technique of mystic poetry". About style of Sāvitrī he made the following observations: "I have not anywhere in Savitri written anything for the sake of mere picturesqueness or merely to produce a rhetorical ...
... , so are the mystic poems. A touch unfathomed is felt which suggests much more than it reveals. Nolini rendered one of my mystic poems into English. I quote it here and close the chapter on mystic poetry. The first tremor of the Light, to the dream-journey Night’s desire is now appeased, She feels the Sun within her, The Mother of Infinity holds in her bosom her first guest; The Call awakens ...
... Veda, which is "a remarkable, a sublime and powerful poetic creation" by Rishis (a Vishvamitra, a Vamadeva, a Dhirghatamas) touching "the most extraordinary heights and amplitudes of a sublime and mystic poetry". 40 The constant feeling of the presence of the Infinite, the sixth sense to see and render this Presence through multifoliate imagery drawn from the psychic plane, and the leap of intuition that ...
... gives a not-altogether-agreeable Hugoesque flavour to mystic Indian poetry; but I wonder whether I have cheapened or misused them. At least you have never taken me to task on that score.) "I did not object to your frequent use of 'infinite', 'eternal', 'limitless', because these are adjectives that I myself freely pepper over my poetry. When one writes about the Infinite, the Eternal and... utterance, and no intellectual speech, no mentalised poetry can equal or even come near to that power and beauty. Here your intellectual dictum that poetry lives by its aesthetic quality alone and has no need of truth or that truth must depend upon aesthetics to become poetic at all, has no longer any meaning. For there truth itself is highest poetry and has only to appear to be utterly beautiful to... that are constantly recurring at short intervals in my poetry when I express not spiritual thought but spiritual experience. I knew perfectly well that this recurrence would be objected to as bad technique or an inadmissible technique; but this seems to me a reasoning from the conventions of a past order which cannot apply to a new poetry dealing with spiritual things. A new art of words written ...
... the accent of what you have described in The Future Poetry as the Mantra? The target of all mystic and spiritual poetry should be, in my opinion, the mantric utterance. At least the target of my own poetry certainly is. Will you shed some light on the Mantra's peculiar quality and original plane? And tell me, please, whether we can expect a poetry from the as-yet unmanifest Supermind?) "The... gives a not-altogether-agreeable Hugoesque flavour to mystic Indian poetry; but I wonder whether I have cheapened or misused them. At least you have never taken me to task on that score.) "I did not object to your frequent use of 'infinite', 'eternal', 'limitless', because these are adjectives that I myself freely pepper over my poetry. When one writes about the Infinite, the Eternal and the... supra-intellectual vision, and something from the substance of the planes of spiritual seeing can come into this poetry whose medium is the poetic intelligence and uplift it. "Milton is a classical poet and most classical poetry is Page 65 fundamentally a poetry of the pure poetic intelligence. But there are other influences which can suffuse and modify the pure poetic i ...
... in the service of inspiration that had its direct origin in some overhead world of expressive utterance. This very well indicates that he had directly opened himself to some high source of mystic-spiritual poetry. There is no doubt that he attributes this whole miracle to the grace of his Guru, but then there is also the element of preparedness, the readiness of tools of the remarkable disciple. ... and rhythmic essentialities of the original Sanskrit poetry that are there everywhere in gleaming abundance in the verses of the Gita. Thus, towards the end of the fourth chapter of Jnaneshwari we have the following: ( Jnaneshwari : 4.211-14 ) Soon the narrative of the Gita will arrive at a point where poetry will be full of Shanta Rasa, the feeling of wide and... approach the Gita who may creatively reveal the marvellous spiritual secrets to him and that he may be able to speak of them in all their trueness in his vernacular. Jnaneshwar is not asking poetry only for the sake of poetry; he is asking it for the sake of enjoyment of the creative spirit in all expressions. Towards the end of the seventh chapter Jnaneshwar once again endearingly alerts his audience ...
... gleam in the purity of a mountain-source and become pearl-drops aquiver with the life of the spirit. In the whole process the poet has accomplished an alchemic miracle. That is the power of mystic-spiritual poetry and Vyasa possesses it in full abundance. That is why the work endures across the spaces of time and does not get attenuated by exoteric considerations. When this power is absent, this power... importantly, it is the spiritual inspiration that here matters the most. Not that all great Sanskrit poetry is so, nor do all spiritual compositions give us such poetry; but Valmiki and Vyasa are at first poets as much as they are, unlike Kalidasa, Rishis and the underlying aesthesis of their poetry is overhead. The first quality of this Rishi-hood we recognise in Vyasa is his wonderful sense of... reserves of sound absent, but even the contents robbed of their high genuineness, of their high purity and poise. The dhwani, the inner music of the language which gives to verses their poetry and which holds poetry together, is no more to be heard in it. We have to only listen to Vyasa and understand and appreciate what solid dense force he has put in that death sentence. A whole world of meaning ...
... gleam in the purity of a mountain-source and become pearl-drops aquiver with the life of the spirit. In the whole process the poet has accomplished an alchemic miracle. That is the power of mystic-spiritual poetry and Vyasa possesses it in full abundance. That is why the work endures across the spaces of time and does not get attenuated by exoteric considerations. When this power is absent, this power... importantly, it is the spiritual inspiration that here matters the most. Not that all great Sanskrit poetry is so, nor do all spiritual compositions give us such poetry; but Valmiki and Vyasa are at first poets as much as they are, unlike Kalidasa, Rishis and the underlying aesthesis of their poetry is overhead. The first quality of this Rishihood we recognise in Vyasa is his wonderful sense... reserves of sound absent, but even the contents robbed of their high genuineness, of their high purity and poise. The dhwani , the inner music of the language which gives to verses their poetry and which holds poetry together, is no more to be heard in it. We have to only listen to Vyasa and understand and appreciate what solid dense force he has put in that death-sentence. A whole world of meaning ...
... 125 CANTO I The first Canto is found to be a very difficult by many genuine lovers of poetry. It is so because Sāvitrī is not like ordinary poetry, an aesthetic creation either of the higher vital or refined intellectual being. It is psychic, mystic and spiritual poetry and in the first Canto the sublime dominates. The very concepts and symbols used by the seer are so unfamiliar... aspiration for the Spirit from the normal state of ignorance. The Night described in the beginning of the first Canto is also symbolic. The poet in a letter has written, "The attempt at mystic spiritual poetry of the kind I am at demands above all a spiritual objectivity, an intense psycho-physical concreteness. That darkness itself is described as a quietude which gives it a subjective spiritual... Page 138 24. "And squanders eternity on a beat of Time". Compare Sri Aurobindo's "In horis Eternum". 25. "Too mystic-real for space-tenancy" The presence of the Dawn and the glory that accompanied it was not unreal. It was mystic-real. This suggests different orders of Reality. The physical is not the only real. 26. "Fluttering-hued"—a fine expressive word ...
... from Sanskrit poetry." Even when it comes to the spiritual themes Sri Aurobindo does not veil his mystic realisations. His insights in allegory, his use of myth or symbol, all have the language of living experience in poetry. No wonder that in his hand the legend of Savitri should win for us its deepest symbolic truth. "Through āropa or superposition he has made the legend the purveyor of his... profitably worship. In India where a roadside stone can be turned into an idol, it is little wonder that precious metals and gemstones as repositories of occult powers should find place in mystic-spiritual poetry. Precious stones are structurally more perfect than ordinary stones. These can be charged with consciousness. Such can also be their use in literary creations. This use can go far beyond the... which alone can reveal the poetry. 19: Lotika Ghose's brief but perceptive study of her uncle Sri Aurobindo's poetry was one of the earliest works that has the mark of an enduring literary evaluation. She was the daughter of Sri Aurobindo's poet-brother Manmohan. Once she was taken aback when Spiegelberg, the admirer of The Life Divine, told her that the poetry of the author of the philosophical ...
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