... the concentration is strongly to something else. 7 January 1937 Poetic Inspiration and Prose-Work I am at present too much caught in the prose-work. No wonder poetry is impossible. I suppose the prose has to run its course before the poetic inspiration gets a chance to return? Why the deuce should your poetic inspiration wait for the results of the prose canter? The ground being still cumbered... making with hundreds of poems in you also in the making, very much so. The mountains in labour, you know—what? 6 December 1935 Page 582 Inspiration during Sleep Of late my poetic inspiration has shifted from the waking to the sleep state. I often compose poetry in sleep but cannot remember exactly what I write. Concentrate in the will to remember before going to sleep—when you ...
... Inspiration and Effort Notes on Poetic Inspiration A PERSONAL DOCUMENT People sometimes ask me: "How do you get poetic inspiration?" Inspiration comes to me in the form of a sudden spark or flame-seed falling into the consciousness. A kind of shock is felt and I know that the soul is pregnant with a poem. The poem may follow after a brief interval... haze the common feelings and bodily excitements, but aching for the Spiritual, the Eternal in its unadulterated form, a straight nisus towards deity. The trouble, however, for those whose poetic inspiration must be drawn from beyond the normal mind in order to be perfect and who yet have too active and ingenious an intellect is that, until' the latter is fully illumined with the Spirit's smiling ...
... spirituality is to avoid the by-lanes of poetry, i.e., to extinguish ¹ Prière Poésie, par I'Abbè H. Brémond (de l'Acadèmie Française). Page 101 inevitably all poetry and poetic inspiration. Let us pin our attention on the first thing first: whether the poet is at all a Yogi or a Sadhaka and, if so, in what sense. It is not quite uncommon that in the creation of almost every... blue and fell In the muddy grey river of Hell Unpierced by Heaven's seeing.) In our country also Rabindranath Tagore's name needs no mention. A spiritual aspiration pervades his poetic inspiration. It is evident that this spiritual aspiration is the source of his poetic creation. But let us listen to Madhusudan, the so-called iconoclast: Where is the world of the Brahman? Where... delight of consciousness reckon on things of the material world. I have already said that the theme of the poet may not be spiritual; even then he derives from a subtle consciousness all his poetic inspiration. The author of Sahitya Darpan (The Mirror of Literature) tells us something profound and significant as regards the spiritual nature or form in poetic creation. The delight of poetry can be ...
... companionship and the risks are hinted at as being constant by the r-note running from start to finish - 5 times audible ~ across the line. (6.5.1987) What light is shed on the nature of poetic inspiration in general by Sri Aurobindo's line: "Sight's sound-waves breaking from the soul's great deeps"? This line from Savitri is meant primarily to sum up the Page 72 Mantra... poetry of the highest spiritual truth flowing out "in metres that reflect the moving worlds" - and it is itself an exemplification of mantric utterance. But it also sheds light on the nature of poetic inspiration in general. For, if the Mantra is the ideal poetry, all poetry that is genuine must represent or shadow forth in its own way the mantric essence. We gather from the line, first of all, that ...
... dozed off. 1 got up again quite early without any sense of fatigue. Throughout the day there was no sleepy feeling. Two nights back I had kept awake similarly; but there had been no poetic inspiration. I had, however, been making inward Page 221 contact again and again with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and hearing what I hear in my best and calmest moods, a low universal... feeling that a grip had broken loose in my chest, with no longer a dreadful hollow as in the experience on May 8, but a sweet warm restful wideness that held deeper and deeper their presence. The poetic inspiration Page 223 and their presence were really one and the same thing—and after each poem had been written I could not help inwardly divesting myself of its authorship and offering ...
... consciousness—or getting somehow into contact with it, one not originally a poet can awake to poetic inspiration and power. No poetry can be written without access to some source of Inspiration. Mere recording of dreams or images or even visions could never be sufficient, unless it is a poetic inspiration that records them with the right use of words and rhythm bringing out their poetic substance. ...
... When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere, So pale grows reason at religion's sight; So dies and so dissolves in supernatural light. I have always regarded these couplets as poetic inspiration flowing through the movement of the pure intellect. I am sure Dryden, Page 393 living in a period when wisdom was expected to be allied to wit, would have been pleased if someone... position, to make a special disclosure of its significance. Sri Aurobindo 1 characterises the line as being "wonderful" with its "fathomless depth" while regretting that such triumphs of poetic inspiration should occur in Wordsworth quite often in the midst of verse that is flat. What He calls "fathomless depth" is achieved not only by the idea getting an intuitively guided expression but also ...
... predecessors. But, on the whole, Romanticism is felt only in the form of this work, not in its spirit; or else the spirit keeps the shadow of Romanticism, not the substance. And the sheer poetic inspiration is also much less. Sri Aurobindo 8 writes: "The descent from the uncertain but high elevations of the first romantic, half spiritual outbreak is very marked, baffling and sudden. This is ... densely packed with the glory of this ecstasy and lustre." It is the inrush of this supramental glory into brain and heart and nerve that creates the psychological phenomenon noted from of old as poetic inspiration. But rarely does the supreme significant word come direct and Page 174 unaltered: ordinarily there is, as it were, a cloud of formless light from which we have to disengage... and then, there emerges, as Sri Aurobindo 15 puts it, "a certain effort to recapture the Shakespearian potency and intensity accompanied by a new and higher element in the workings of the poetic inspiration. When we try to put a name on it... we can see that this is an attempt to return to the fullness and the awakening turn of the direct intuitive expression on a subtler and more ethereal level ...
... dozed off. I got up again quite early without any sense of fatigue. Throughout the day there was no sleepy feeling. Two nights back I had kept awake similarly; but there had been no poetic inspiration. I had, however, been making inward contact again and again with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and hearing what I hear in my best and calmest moods, a low universal croon, a far-away rhythm... feeling that a grip had broken loose in my chest, with no longer a dreadful hollow as in the experience on May 8, but a sweet warm restful wideness that held deeper and deeper their presence. The poetic inspiration and their presence were really one and the same thing—and after each poem had been written I could not help inwardly divesting myself of its authorship and offering it into their hands. This ...
... constantly been helped, advised and encouraged by Sri Aurobindo. There is a huge correspondence in which Sri Aurobindo comments on many poems of Sethna, shows him the different sources of poetic inspiration, proposes variations, defines poetry of the kind Sethna wants to write and opens before him new vistas of poetic vision and expression. This correspondence is now available for anyone who... as possible to outgrow the remnants of the decorative and rhetorical level...." 10 Sri Aurobindo replies with patience and helps the soul-poet to grow so that he can receive the poetic inspiration from ever-higher regions of the Word. When asked to give some general rules about the writing of poetry Sri Aurobindo replies, "Avoid over-writing; let all your sentences be a vehicle ...
... and mind-sets always persist and arc bound to impede a fair and judicious judgment. On the other hand, reading spiritual poetry of this kind in terms of the sources and planes of poetic inspiration, when handled by a Poet-Guru or a Realized Being, could be rewarding. And this is what we see in much of the insightful comments, at Page 379 tunes keenly ... insipid prose. The chief goal of poetry, Sri Aurobindo maintains, is to depict Truth through Beauty. The problem of the form, and the content too, is easily resolved. It is the power of poetic inspiration that usually manages to discover its own characteristic form of expression. For indeed "the essential and decisive step of the future art of poetry will perhaps be to discover that it is ...
... occult consciousness—or getting somehow into contact with it, one not originally a poet can awake to poetic inspiration and power. No poetry can be written without access to some source of Inspiration. Mere recording of dreams or images could never be sufficient, unless it is a poetic inspiration that records them with the right use of words and rhythm bringing out their poetic substance. On the ...
... "What a powerful vital!" I can tell you that my own vital has done that feat when a flow was felt. Yes, but D's vital strength is inborn, though it may not have at first been open to the poetic inspiration. When it did it could leap at once with full energy and gave itself entirely to the flow—It was not the flow that made it "magnificent". I find that D didn't have to struggle as much as I—his... The activity of the vital is there in N as well as in Dilip. I don't see why you brought in "the organisation of the Supermind in the physical consciousness" into the talk about your poetic inspiration. The first is collective, the second individual. Excuse me, it was you who brought in overmind etc. in connection with my poetry and asked why having these things I had to rewrite Savitri ...
... intuitive reflection. Where is this Intuition gone in my case? No chance of re turning? What does it mean by giving a flying visit? That kind of hide and seek is a frequent phenomenon of poetic inspiration. May 6, 1938 Guru, when I read that your method of writing poetry is the same as mine, I said: "The shishya's method must be the same as the Guru's," but when I read the rest of... taken only if it is quite indispensable. What about the man (B.S. worker) who fell and got wounded? is he not to come for treatment? May 24, 1938 Guru, why for some time has my poetic inspiration waned? Does the Divine want me to stop for the time being or is it a temporary phase? At times I strongly suspect that you have left me to shift for myself, perhaps relieved very rarely whenever ...
... consciousness—or getting somehow into contact with it, one not originally a poet can awake to poetic inspiration and power. No poetry can be written without access to some source of inspiration. Mere recording of dreams or images or even visions could never be sufficient, unless it is a poetic inspiration that records them with the right use of words and rhythm bringing out their poetic substance. ...
... and, like Seneca and Aurelius, gave himself up to moralising and philosophising, delving into the mystery, the why and the how and the whither of it all. He chose a dangerous subject for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said that his attempt was a failure. Lucretius was not a religious or spiritual poet; he was rather Marxian,— atheistic, materialistic. The dialectical materialism of today... born of the Mind). To sum up and recapitulate. The evolution of the poetic expression in man has ever been an attempt at a return and a progressive approach to the spiritual source of poetic inspiration, which was also the original, though somewhat veiled, source from the very beginning. The movement has followed Page 305 devious ways—strongly negative at times—even like man's ...
... and, like Seneca and Aurelius, gave himself up to moralising and philosophising, delving 'into the mystery, the why and the how and the whither of it all. He chose a dangerous subject for his poetic inspiration and yet it cannot be said that his attempt was a failure. Lucretius was not a religious or spiritual poet; he was rather Marxian, – atheistic, materialistic. The dialectical materialism of today... being born of the Mind). To sum up and recapitulate. The evolution of the poetic expression in man has ever been an attempt at a return and a progressive approach to the spiritual source of poetic inspiration, which was also the original, though somewhat veiled, source from the very beginning. The movement has followed Page 77 devious ways – strongly negative at times – even like man's ...
... extent the action fails or falls short or becomes in some Page 530 degree unsatisfying or incomplete. In what seems to be an exploit of the spirit so purely mental as the outpouring of poetic inspiration, there must be a responsive vibration of the brain and its openness as a channel for the power of the thought and vision and the light of the word that is making or breaking its way through or ...
... ritual influence -the plane of Truth-Consciousness. In spiritual poetry, both the Thought and the Vision are present - the Vision growing more and more luminous and insistent as the poetic inspiration comes from higher and higher sources. How are we to distinguish between the poetry of spiritual thought and that of spiritual vision? When there is a vision the truth becomes visible and concrete ...
... unfinished work and wait for a more auspicious occasion. Bit by bit the wonder would grow under his hand. This was quite opposed to the process by which his friend AE wrote his poems. To AE the poetic inspiration came in a straight flow from the recesses of his being, recesses he had visited in his trances. AE may have found it difficult to understand how Yeats could produce faultless poetry, astonishingly ...
... room at King's College, Cambridge, where young Aurobindo was unfolding his powers the most with superb proficiency in Greek and Latin side by side with mastery in English and where the founts of poetic inspiration were first unsealed to issue in lines like the opening of "Night by the Sea" in which in spite of a half-Romantic half-Victorian colour in the language we get a glimpse or rather a foreshadow ...
... Aurobindo once wrote to me about his mind -namely, that it was eternally quiet and that everything came to him from "overhead". But my practice, helped all the time by Sri Aurobindo, of receiving poetic inspiration again and again from the planes above that of the creative intelligence -Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind - has trained the mental Me not exactly to escape ...from the ...
... t who, with his curious mixture of the "highbrow" and the spasmodic "Unconscious", pretends to write poetry while pushing away in experience as well as utterance the very source and stuff of poetic inspiration: loveliness. Page 92 ...
... concentrating in one brief expression the ultimate nature of the mantric utterance. Yes, the whole subject is a special hieratic one, but the treatment of it sheds light on the nature of poetic inspiration in general. For, if the mantra is the ideal poetry, all poetry that is genuine must represent or shadow forth in its own way the mantric essence. In our first group of six lines ...
... Much greater, initial and essential was the defect in the poetry that followed this strong beginning. Here all is unredeemed intellectuality and even the very first elements of the genuine poetic inspiration are for the most part, one might almost say, entirely absent. Pope and Dryden and their school, except now and then and as if by accident,—Dryden especially has lines sometimes in which he suddenly ...
... which the life-sense, the thought, the emotion, the appeal of beauty in the thing discovered and in its expression—for all great poetic utterance is discovery,—rise on the wave of the culminating poetic inspiration and pass into an ecstasy of sight. In the lesser poets these moments are rare and come like brilliant accidents, angels' visits; in the greater they are more frequent outbursts; but in the greatest ...
... perhaps by the same process which in the Greek religion converted Athene, the Dawn, into the goddess of knowledge and Apollo, the sun, into the divine singer and seer, lord of the prophetic and poetic inspiration. Page 160 In the Veda it is possible that another tendency has been at work,—the persistent and all-pervading habit of symbolism dominant in the minds of these ancient Mystics. Everything ...
... Chitta as instincts, inspirations, insights, intuitions etc. They come up coloured by emotions, distorted by associations and perverted by [the] imagination[s] which bring them up. Bhakti, genius, poetic inspiration all come from this source. (b) Impulses of feeling are of two kinds, natural or eternal, artificial or Vikaras. Love, courage, compassion are natural and are actions caused by Jnanam. Hatred ...
... glory of this ecstasy and lustre. It is the possession of the mind by the supramental touch and the communicated impulse to seize this sight and word that creates the psychological phenomenon of poetic inspiration and it is the invasion of it by a superior power to that which it is normally able to harbour that produces the temporary excitement of brain and heart and nerve which accompanies the inrush ...
... But at the same time there emerges, at times, a certain effort to recapture the Shakespearian potency and intensity accompanied by a new and higher element in the workings of the poetic Page 187 inspiration. When we try to put a name on it,—a thing which the poet himself seldom does successfully, for the creative instinct does not usually care to burden itself with a too intellectual ...
... flight and challenge of the eagle. Longfellow was an admirable literary craftsman in his own limits, the limits of ordinary metre perfectly executed in the ordinary way, but his technique like his poetic inspiration had no subtlety and no power. Yet both subtlety and power, or at the very least one of these greater qualities, are imperatively called for in the creation of a true and efficient English hexameter; ...
... may have his comparative ups and downs. Secondly, the temptation downward comes mainly through an after-glow of the Romantic Movement or through an urge towards high thinking in verse. Thirdly, poetic inspiration can counteract the most down-pulling decorative or ratiocinative terms. Fourthly, a poet like Sri Aurobindo can afford to have his descents pointed out, for not only are they still poetry of ...
... Aurobindo the great nationalist prophet of the century's opening decade and Sri Aurobindo the illumined philosopher and Yogi of Pondicherry in the subsequent years but scarcely realise that his poetic inspiration has been as unsurpassed * This article—except for one additional passage helping the ends of poetic comparison—was first printed in 1929 in the cultural monthly, Orient, of Bombay. It ...
... typical Victorian temperament than in expressing profound vision and emotion. A considerable skill in metre and rhythm is there, but, except on rare occasions, it is not wholly charged with poetic inspiration . Creative energy, whether puissant or delicate, is wanting , and in its place we have an adroit yet somewhat empty elegance that is not seldom on the verge of being musically-turned prose ...
... all that came And gave a sense as of a greatened world. 83 Mr. Alvares will most probably make nothing of this burst of poetic inspiration. He has a rare genius for not understanding heights and depths. But more marvellous still is his genius for misunderstanding even surfaces if they are a little ...
... delight is not merely a godlike pastime; it is a great formative and illuminative power." 13 One other citation from Sri Aurobindo may be made to indicate the general lines of his outlook on poetic inspiration. "What we mean by inspiration is that the impetus to poetic creation and utterance comes to us from a superconscient source above the ordinary mentality, so that what is written seems not to ...
... Will you explain these lines? She replied: "Explain? There is no explanation. They speak for themselves very clearly. Poetry is not to be explained. It is to be felt and not reasoned about. The poetic inspiration is above reason. It must not be made to sink into the domain of the reason, because it will get spoiled.... It is to be understood by an internal contact much more than by words." The Mother ...
... the action fails or falls short or becomes in some degree unsatisfying or incomplete. In what seems to be an exploit of the spirit so purely mental Page 708 as the outpouring of poetic inspiration, there must be a responsive vibration of the brain and its openness as a channel for the power of the thought and vision and the light of the word that is making or breaking its way through or ...
... the apparently personal part which might be pragmatically called "doing this" or "bringing this". That would discourage egoism; but it might discourage my writing also as well as stifle your poetic inspiration while you stared at the roundabouts. "What book?" you ask after 2 or 3 weeks? My "Mahabharat", Sir, or Ramayana, if you like! Good heavens! who would have thought of that? Yes, I ...
... the apparently personal part which might be pragmatically called "doing this" or "bringing this". That would discourage egoism; but it might discourage my writing also as well as stifle your poetic inspiration while you stare about the roundabouts. 34 (12) Advanced sadhaks? advanced indeed! NB: I understand your protesting against "great" or "big" sadhaks, but why against "advanced" sadhaks ...
... ra on the bank of the lake and his answers. (d) Messages received by Prophet Mohammad from the Angel. (e) Account of Rabindra Nath Tagore's experience of his opening to poetic inspiration. (f) "Powers of the Mind" from Swami Vivekananda. 3. Topic for deep study and reflection: how to progress continuously? 4. Study of great personalities: Prophet ...
... rajasic expectation which got disappointed. In the Pranam the Mother puts her force for whatever she sees to be necessary in the sadhana. She would not do it specifically for giving you a poetic inspiration. For that you have only to keep yourself open and it will come of itself whenever it is due. But there should be no over-eagerness—a harmonious listening quietude is the best medium for the rush ...
... dissatisfaction has grown to such a height that she feels like giving up poetry. Whether to write blank verse or not or to write poetry or not, is purely a matter for her choice. She asked for poetic, inspiration and it was given her. Now she seems to complain because it has been given her—it is not her own, therefore not valuable. Well, Sir, she was saying that before writing today, she had some ...
... very far indeed from the "natural" poets, Homer or Shakespeare, Milton or Virgil. And this is from a profane, a mundane poet, not an ostensibly religious or spiritual poet. The level of the poetic inspiration, at least of the poetic view and aspiration has evidently shifted to a higher, a deeper degree. We may be speaking of tins and tinsel, bones and dust, filth and misery, of the underworld of ignorance ...
... responsive to that extent the action fails or falls short or becomes in- some degree unsatisfying or incomplete. In what seems to be an exploit of the spirit so purely mental as the outpouring of poetic inspiration, there must be a responsive vibration of the brain and its openness as a channel for the power of the thought and vision and the light of the word that is' making or breaking its way through ...
... Baudelaire gave a similar high position and —function—to the other collateral organ, the spleen. The modem Bengali poet considers that man's Page 72 consciousness, even his poetic inspiration, is soaked in the secretion of that bilious organ. For man's destiny here upon earth is not delight but grief, not sweetness but gall and bitterness; there is no consolation, no satisfaction ...
... sees her on her return after the choice he finds in her the exuberance of beauty, and delight due to the fulfilment of Love. But his description of Savitri is one of the most wonderful feats of poetic inspiration giving voice to Overmental sight. It is one of the most impassioned and yet impersonal descriptions. The description of Savitri on the last day before she faces Death is suffused with strains ...
... and the second canto states that "twelve passionate months led in a day of fate"; thus Book VIII almost harks back to Book I, mentions the same details though from a rather lesser height of poetic inspiration, before continuing the story. In the present version we have the bare bones of the Mahabharata story transformed into the flesh and blood of a spacious narrative poem like Urvasie and Love ...
... first before one can find a clue to the right action." One astonishing outcome of Arjava's exposure to the Ashram atmosphere was the opening up of the hardly suspected springs of his poetic inspiration, and in less than ten years he composed - for as he lisped in numbers, they came as if effortlessly and unceasingly - a mass of lyric verse to make up a volume of nearly 400 pages. While Sri ...
... Mother, will you explain the two poems? Explain? There is no explanation. They speak for themselves, very clearly. It cannot be explained—poetry. You must feel it and not reason about it. Poetic inspiration is beyond the reason. You must not bring it down into the domain of reason, because then it is spoilt. It is felt much more than... it can be understood by an inner contact much more than by ...
... considered as the symbol of spiritual aspiration for transformation, and spiritual plenitude was symbolised by the full moon. Moonlight has always been considered to be very favourable to visions, to poetic inspiration and all other-worldly activity. There are all kinds of stories and legends about the stars—stars which appeared on the day a divine being was born.... But all that is a rather literary kind of ...
... responsive, to that extent the action fails or falls short or becomes in some degree unsatisfying or incomplete. In what seems to be an exploit of the spirit so purely mental as the outpouring of poetic inspiration, there must be a responsive vibration of the brain and its openness as a channel for the power of the thought and vision and the light of the word that is making or breaking its way through or ...
... brought in to assist the more direct utterance, must be used in a different fashion, less as a veil, more as a real correspondence. The first condition of the complete emergence of this new poetic inspiration and this vaster and deeper significance of Page 302 poetic speech must be the completion of an as yet only initial spiritualised turn of our general human feeling and intelligence ...
... nineteenth century, but the attempt to walk back into it in the year of grace 1931 is not likely to be a success, it can only result in an artificial literary exercise. You have a genuine vein of poetic inspiration somewhere above your intellect which comes through sometimes when the said intellect can be induced to be quiet and the lower vital does not meddle. If I were you, I should try to find that always ...
... " It seems to reflect Shakespeare's own scepticism. But it is very difficult to know whether Shakespeare believes in any blessed thing, because he seems to be just a vehicle, a mouthpiece, of poetic inspiration and it didn't matter one jot what he believed and what he himself thought and what he did — and he hardly seems to have done anything worth recording. Just to steal a deer in the countryside ...
... Coleridge or Matthew Arnold makes the same remark, "It's beautiful." The words will have come from an entirely different source: they will have sprung from a mind quick to the revelatory impact of poetic inspiration and the significance they will carry for whoever is able to recognise their source will be momentous. The two utterances were identical and yet worlds apart. In a like manner, a spiritual person ...
... the poet. Apropos of both the supernatural and this intimacy we may revert to Kubla Khan and mention that in its closing part it provides a vivid picturisation of the Romantic view of poetic inspiration. Not only is the poet portrayed as one who has known paradisal raptuies: he is also declared to have seen the vision of a strange form that creates music and whose remembrance by the poet would ...
... But they come up coloured by emotions, distorted by associations and memories in the Chitta, perverted by the imagination which brings them up. Much of what is called faith, Bhakti, genius, poetic inspiration etc., comes from this source. It is useful to the ordinary man, all important to the animal, but a hindrance to the Yogin. The impulses of feeling are what are ordinarily called emotions. ...
... explain the two passages?" she replied: "Explain? There is no explanation. They speak for themselves very clearly. Poetry is not to be explained. It is to be felt and not reasoned about. The poetic inspiration is above reason. It must not be made to sink into the domain of the reason, because it will get spoiled... It is to be understood by an internal contact much more than by the words." * ...
... concentrating in one brief expression the ultimate nature of the mantric utterance. Yes, the whole subject is a special hieratic one, but the treatment of it sheds light on the nature of poetic inspiration in general. For, if the mantra while concentrating in one brief expression the ultimate nature of the mantric utterance. In our first group of six lines we listed as the divine element ...
... stained hands. Macbeth , however, is the Mount Everest of Shakespeare's Himalaya not only because, over and above the usual organic heat and constructive onrush, it has a more uniform poetic inspiration than anywhere else. The poetry and the drama now depict, with a keener vision than ever before, a bursting out of forces from behind the external consciousness. The supernatural takes possession ...
... the typical Victorian temperament than in expressing profound vision and emotion. A considerable skill in metre and rhythm is there, but, except on rare occasions, it is not wholly charged with poetic inspiration. Creative energy, whether puissant or delicate, is wanting, and in its place we have an adroit yet somewhat empty elegance that is not seldom on the verge of being musically-turned prose. These ...
... But from the Master he wanted to elicit the highest praise: Not satisfied with a "very good", he strove to deserve an "excellent" or "superb", and to reach, the highest possible levels of poetic inspiration. The remarkable thing is that he has been able to sustain this high level-of poetic achievement over more than 60 years - although of course there have been variations in the rate ...
... in Wordsworth something of the Indian soul." 5 In his analyses of individual poems and while estimating their quality, Sethna makes a judicious use of Sri Aurobindo's profound concept of poetic inspiration which, according to him, can hail from one of the following planes: (1) The Subtle Physical, (2) The Vital, (3) The Creative Intelligence, (4) The Inner Mind, (5) The Psychic, (6) The Higher ...
... his thought, to speak out his inner mystery. According to Sethna, Mallarmé takes the reader "beyond the suggestive semi-clarity that on occasion rises out of the keenly explored founts of poetic inspiration". Page 236 The dhvani of the poems of Mallarmé unfolds the binary categories such as the 'self’ and the 'non-self’, the 'individual’ and the 'universe', the ...
... polite and almost timid man. While still in Baroda, he took up pranayama, a yogic breathing technique; daily he devoted six hours of his time to it, but the only effect was an abundant flow of poetic inspiration, resulting among others in his long poem Love and Death, all of which was written in a very short time. But pranayama without expert guidance is dangerous, and when he stopped practising ...
... is to be lifted. They also warn me that if I don't take extreme care I may develop more serious trouble. But I feel full of your presence and do what my suddenly and abundantly released poetic inspiration leads me to do. I sit up frequently, get excited with the passage of the poems through me—especially when the lines seem to come from wide, far-off spaces—and my heart starts beating fast at ...
... vii of "A Personal Preface" to The Adventure of the Apocalypse. In the first para I write: "... Two Page 337 nights back I had kept awake similarly; but there had been no poetic inspiration. I had, however, been making inward contact again and again with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and hearing what I hear in my best and calmest moods, a low universal croon, a far-away rhythm with ...
... concentrating in one brief expression the ultimate nature of the mantric utterance. Yes, the whole subject is a special hieratic one, but the treatment of it sheds light on the nature of poetic inspiration in general. For, if the mantra is the ideal poetry, all poetry that is genuine must represent or shadow forth in its own way the mantric essence. Page 177 In our first ...
... this information, for it touches on an unforgettable phase of my own life in the Ashram. Owing to my sustained aspiration to write what Sri Aurobindo has termed "overhead poetry", that is, poetic inspiration caught from secret levels of consciousness above the mind, levels of a superhuman light and delight, Sri Aurobindo generously granted the incredible favour of letting me see portions of his ...
... is also an apocalypt of the realities whose life-throb comes in the shape of these words cannot be decided straight away and the decision is not required for assessing the authenticity of the poetic inspiration. Page 75 ...
... will get the correct perspective in two of the opening pages.² Let me quote from them: "Owing to my sustained aspiration to write what Sri Aurobindo has termed 'overhead poetry', that is, poetic inspiration caught from secret levels of consciousness above the mind, levels of a superhuman light and delight, Sri Aurobindo generously granted the incredible favour of letting me see portions of his ...
... speak will carry other connotations and other associations. It will be not only loaded with thought and emotion but also will to do things in its expressive richness and opulence. When the poetic inspiration comes from an inexhaustible source of joy then it also finds its own style and technique. It could be a physical action on the battlefield, it could be a life-force asserting itself ...
... concentrating in one brief expression the ultimate nature of the mantric utterance. Yes, the whole subject is a special hieratic one, but the treatment of it sheds light on the nature of poetic inspiration in general. For, if the Mantra is the ideal poetry, all poetry that is genuine must represent or shadow forth in its own way the mantric essence. In our first group of six lines we ...
... their minds have got their source somewhere no doubt in the deeper layers of our consciousness, but they are the layers that had better be left untapped rather than be made the founts of our poetic inspiration. For they are not the sublime domains of Saraswati, the Goddess-Muse of real divine poetry. On the other hand, Sri Aurobindo's images are equally modem, sometimes even too modem, but at the ...
... Horace claimed the tide 'Priest of the Muse' in ancient times. But Horace was not a real innovator, and if he followed the conventions of the day in paying lip-service to the muse of poetic inspiration he did not follow her to the heart's depths or seek her above where thought gives way to spiritual sight. If any can be called Priest of the Muses in our time it is the author of The Secret ...
... because it all started from that act. Amal is a poet and a very fine poet at that, and with Sri Aurobindo Himself being such a great poet he found a very fine opportunity for his poetic inspiration to have its full scope. Amal wrote a lot of poetry and sent his work to Sri Aurobindo who liked it and commented very favourably, even at times very highly on it. There was a wide exchange ...
... is to be lifted. They also warn me that if I don’t take extreme care I may develop more serious trouble. But I feel full of your presence and do what my suddenly and abundantly released poetic inspiration leads me to do. I sit up frequently, get excited with the passage of the poems through me and my heart starts beating fast at that time, and if the doctors could then put their stethoscopes to ...
... head is to be lifted. They also warn me that if I don't take extreme care I may develop more serious trouble. But I feel full of your presence and do what my suddenly and abundantly released poetic inspiration leads me to do. I sit up frequently, get Page 80 excited with the passage of the poems through me—especially when the lines seem to come from wide far-off spaces—and my heart ...
... with life and gāmbhirjya [gravity or solemnity], also the fine poem Pāpī ["Sinner"] you had read. He is now 25 only and it is surprising to find such a perfection of form and a genuine poetic inspiration, is it not? What I regret is that he should be writing so many bad stories instead of writing more good poems. But he says he has to live on his writings and so— I agree. I once made a ...
... counted and fixed. The entire collection of the mantras is called "Samhitā". According to one view, the word Veda is applicable to both the collection of the mantras (inevitable expressions of poetic inspiration and revelation) and Brāhmanas. Brāhmanas are supposed to be detailed analysis and commentary on the collection of the mantras. Brāhmanas again are divided into three parts, (i) Brāhmanas, (ii) ...
... shortly after the first world war, a fresh approach to the mysteries of the human body. After more than fifty years, it is remarkable to find that such was the insight, one may even say the poetic inspiration behind the book that it is hardly obsolete in its description 'of the body. Here and there, scientists of today would go further, add newly discovered details, but they might not however be able ...
... lake and his answers. Messages received by Prophet Muhammad from the Angel. Page 50 Account of Rabindranath Tagore's experience of his opening to poetic inspiration. "Powers of the Mind" -from Swami Vivekananda. Topic for deep study and reflection: how to progress continuously? Study of great personalities: Prophet Muhammad (a detailed ...
... to Yudhishthira on the bank of the lake and his answers. (d) Messages received by Prophet Muhammad from the Angel. (e) Account of Rabindranath Tagore's experience of his opening to poetic inspiration. (f) "Powers of the Mind" — from Swami Vivekananda. 3. Topic for deep study and reflection: how to progress continuously? 4. Study of great personalities: Prophet Muhammad (a detailed ...
... Character of Poetry; The Ideal Spirit of Poetry; The Sun of Poetic Truth; The Soul of Poetic Delight and Beauty; The Word and the Spirit; The Process, Form and Substance of Poetry; Sources of Poetic Inspiration and Vision; Poetic Rhythm and Technique; Beauty and Art; Appreciation of Poetry and Art; Poets, Mystics and Intellectuals; Poetic Creation and Yoga; Modern Poetry; Translation of Poetry; The ...
... forth in The Synthesis of Yoga. Much of this comes to a head in Book X or 'The Book of the Double Twilight'. In the four cantos of this mass of verse sustained at a consistently high level of poetic inspiration, the dialectical issue between Death and Savitri is joined once again, all arts are tried, thesis is countered by antithesis, the soap-bubble of casuistry is pricked to nothingness, false lures ...
... Douve profonde et noire 3 He names her Douve, perhaps in memory of his first master Jouve, and addresses her as Sombre Lumiere (Dark Light). He evidently means his poetic inspiration; his vision of the other shore is that of the world of his poetic experiences and realisations. But the nature of the contents of that world is very characteristic. They are apparently qualities ...
... Douve profonde et noire 1 He names her Douve, perhaps in memory of his first master Jouve, and addresses her as Sombre Lumière (Dark Light). He evidentiy means his poetic inspiration; his vision of the other shore is that of the world of his poetic experiences and realisations. But the nature of the contents of that world is very characteristic. They are apparendy qualities ...
... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8 Poetry and Poetic Inspiration I have said: "Poetry is sensuality of the mind". How is it so? It is because poetry is in relation with the forms and images of ideas—forms, images, sensations, impressions, emotions attached to ideas are the sensual or, if you prefer to call it, the sensuous side of things. All such relations ...
... Ibid. Page 147 to the modern. To the modern, however, the old masters are not subtle enough, broad enough, psychological enough, let us say the word, spiritual enough. And yet the poetic inspiration, more than the religious urge, needs the injunction not to be busy with too many things, but to be centred upon the one thing needful, viz., to create poetically and not to discourse philosophically ...
... her Douve profonde et noire³ He names her Douve, perhaps in memory of his first master Jouve, and addresses her as Sombre Lumière (Dark Light). He evidently means his poetic inspiration; his vision of the other shore is that of the world of his poetic experiences and realisations. But the nature of the contents of that world is very characteristic. They are apparently qualities ...
... that the French poet Baudelaire gave a similar high position – and function – to the other collateral organ, the spleen. The modern Bengali poet considers that man's consciousness, even his poetic inspiration, is soaked in the secretion of that bilious organ. For man's destiny here upon earth is not delight but grief, not sweetness but gall and bitterness; there is no consolation, no satisfaction ...
... very far indeed from the "natural" poets, Homer or Shakespeare, Milton, or Virgil. And this is from a profane, a mundane poet, not an ostensibly religious or spiritual poet. The level of the poetic inspiration, at least of the poetic view and aspiration has evidently shifted to a higher, a deeper degree. We may be speaking of tins and tinsel, bones and dust, filth and misery, of the underworld of ignorance ...
... can be more poetic in essence than philosophy, if by philosophy we mean, as it should mean, spiritual truth and spiritual realisation? What else can give the full breath, the integral force to poetic inspiration if it is not the problem of existence itself, of God, Soul and Immortality, things that touch, that are at the very root of life and reality? What can most concern man, what can strike the deepest ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4 Poetry and Poetic Inspiration I HAVE said: "Poetry is sensuality of the mind". How is it so? It is because poetry is in relation with the forms and images of ideas – forms, images, sensations, impressions, emotions attached to ideas are the sensual or, if you prefer to call it, the sensuous side of things ...
... their dreary days, their sudden exultations and exhilarations, their strange fears and their leaden-eyed despairs - or they wrote about problems of philosophy, or Yoga theory and practice, or poetic inspiration and technique - or even on contemporary Indian and world politics. And the reply came giving the true balm of spiritual succour in the shape of a kindly-worded, conversationally-spoken, message ...
... mountain". His second poem, "The Poet" also moves on the plane of intuition where he feels the exaltation of the creative moment and in three brilliant images, each typifying a special process of poetic inspiration on a level higher than the mind, gives us almost the secret of the true poetic creation. First is "the moon's fitful sleep on a clouded bay"; second is "the maiden flight of white swans" coming ...
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