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... properly be called mantric power. That Vedic poetry is mystic and symbolic can be noticed at once by taking a number of examples, even if we take them at random. And, if we realise that the Vedic poets composed their poems in words that were meant to be chanted and heard, we shall come to appreciate the metric mastery and sense of music of which they were capable. Even today, when we listen to... presence that begins to pervade not only our outer senses but also our inner mind and heart and deeper depths of our souls. And if we examine as to how this miracle has been created, we find that the Vedic poets had reached profound depths of poetics in regard to the word, — its sound-value, its thought-value and its spiritual-value, as also in regard to rhythmic movement, Page 71 -- its... vision is antique and therefore it gives a strange look to the substance intended to be communicated. In order to enter into the heart of Vedic poetry, we need, first, to emphasise that for the Vedic poets, the physical and the psychical worlds were twofold and diverse and yet connected. For them, figures of cosmic godheads applied both to the inner and outer life of man; and they visualised human ...

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... created the worlds and creates perpetually. All world is expression or manifestation, creation by the Word.... And the word of creative Power welling upward out of the soul is also brahman. 26 The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras; they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisations for others.... Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken... 'influence' also. From the Indian tradition Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are present in Savitri as far as possible in the genius of the English language. Both inspiration and vision of the early Vedic poets have left their mark on Savitri; but it is the Upanishads that have directly contributed to the formulation of the new poetics. If an essential relation between the linguistic form ...

... only the fount and origin of these divine flames, he is also described in the Veda Page 164 as himself the first, that is to say the supreme and original prathamo aṅgirāḥ . What do the Vedic poets wish us to understand by this description? We can best understand by a glance at some of the passages in which this epithet is applied to the bright and flaming deity. In the first place it is twice... words, Light. Agni, the sacred flame, is the burning force of Light; the Angirases also are burning powers of the Light. But of what light? physical or figurative? We must not imagine that the Vedic poets were crude and savage intellects incapable of the obvious figure, common to all languages, which makes the physical light a figure of the mental and spiritual, of knowledge, of an inner illumination ...

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... warrior, and a journey and a sacrifice. The Vedic poets spoke of these things in a fixed system of images taken from Nature and from the surrounding life of the warlike, pastoral and agricultural Aryan peoples. And these images centred around the cult of Fire and the worship of the powers of living Nature and the institution of sacrifice. The Vedic poets used for their expression also a glowing web ...

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... As we study the Veda deeply, we find that Agni is not only a principle of physical fire, but it stands much more constantly and thoroughly for the psychological principle of Will-Force. The Vedic poets make it abundantly clear that they regard the whole universe vibrant with a secret Will-Force, of which physical fire is only one outer manifestation, which can be used as a symbol in-an attempt... The Veda describes through its hymns not only the nature of Agni, but provides the exact vibratory sounds by which a dynamic contact with God Agni can be established. For, according to the Vedic poets, a sound or a certain secret set of vibrations tunes exactly with the vibrations which are appropriate to the vibrations of invisible psychological forces and entities. The Veda provides these ...

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... warrior, and a journey and a sacrifice. The Vedic poets spoke of these things in a fixed system of images taken from Nature and from the surrounding life of the war-like, pastoral and agricultural Aryan peoples. And these images centred round the cult of Fire and the worship of the powers of living Nature and the institution of sacrifice. The Vedic poets used for their expression a fixed and yet variable ...

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... Parpola 235 quotes T. Burrow's remarks on p. 74 of the latter's review of Rau: Professor Rau has given some evidence that in speaking of a hundred (or ninety-nine) fortifications the Vedic poets had in mind a system of concentric defences. I doubt if this was always so. The hundred forts of Śambara and like phrases represent an ancient tradition handed down through generations as part... Rigvedic hymns seem, on the surface, to be largely concerned with mundane objects hardly worthy of such intricate poems claiming a divine inspiration and invested by 348. The Vision of the Vedic Poets (Mouton & Co., The Hague, 1963), pp. 17-18. Page 341 later tradition with immense sanctity. But, the Rishis themselves describe their utterances as "secret words", ninya vacāmsi ...

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... Page 468 Lest men should find them and be even as Gods. 124 And elsewhere: A cave of darkness guards the eternal Light. The inspiration and vision of the early Vedic poets have certainly left their mark on Savitri , but it is the Upanishads that have directly contributed to the formulation of the new poetics. The Upanishads are, says Sri Aurobindo, "a continuation... Page 476 Conclusion Here I would like to say a few words about the Mantra, a potent Vedic notion which has greatly influenced Sri Aurobindo's poetics and poetical work. "The Vedic poets," says he, "regarded their poetry as Mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisations for others." 162 And the Mantra meant to the sages "an ...

... study the psychological theory of this Veda closely, we find that Agni is not only a principle of physical fire, but stands much more constantly and thoroughly for the psychological Will-Force. The Vedic poets make it abundantly clear that they have discovered a secret Will-Force to be constantly vibrant in the whole universe. According to them, physical fire is only one outer manifestation, which can... universe. The Veda describes through various hymns not only the nature of Agni, but provides the exact vibratory sounds by which a dynamic contact with Agni can be established. For, according to the Vedic poets, a sound or a certain secret set of vibrations are appropriate to the vibrations of invisible psychological forces and entities. The Veda provides these secret sets of vibrations. The very hymns ...

... and seek the superconscient ocean above; and from above that ocean sends downward its rivers of the light and truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus in images of physical Nature the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension. That ascension has already been effected by the Ancients, the human forefathers, and the spirits of these great Ancestors still assist their offspring; ...

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... were meant to reveal to the initiates what they concealed from the ignorant, are to all appearance crudely concrete, intimately personal, loosely occasional and allusive. To this lax outer garb the Vedic poets are sometimes careful to give a clear and coherent form quite other than the strenuous inner soul of their meaning; their language then becomes a cunningly woven mask for hidden truths. More often ...

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... sometimes he makes it mean the priest. There is not a single passage in the Veda where the ordinary sense "god", "divine being" does not give a clear and sufficient & the best sense. No doubt, the Vedic poets never left out of sight its root meaning; the gods are the Shining Ones, the Lords of Light as are the Dasyus the Dark or Black Ones, the sons of Darkness. ऋत्विजं. "He who sacrifices at the ...

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... extant Scripture, its earliest interpretation of man and the Divine and the universe, as a remarkable, a sublime and powerful poetic creation. It is in its form and speech no barbaric production. The Vedic poets are masters of a consummate technique, their rhythms are carved like chariots of the gods and borne on divine and ample wings of sound, and are at once concentrated and wide-waved, great in movement ...

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... great Scriptures—Veda, Upanishads, Gila—it may well have a power for a spiritual impulse, uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation: to say that it cannot contradicts human experience. The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these were illuminations, not the settled and ...

... in The Cambridge History of India (1922). Gimbutas, Marija, "Accounting for a Great Change", in Times Literary Supplement (June 24-30, 1988). Gonda, J., The Vision of the Vedic Poets (Mouton, The Hague, 1963). Gordon, D.H., The Prehistoric Background of Indian Culture (Tripathi, Bombay, 1959). Grist, D.H., Rice 4th ed. (Longmans, 1965). Greppin ...

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... Scriptures—Veda, Upanishads, Gita,—it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience. The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras , they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled ...

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... ordinary (non-spiritual) poetry? If there is sameness of expression in spiritual poems, it is due either to the poet's binding himself by the tradition of a fixed set of symbols (e.g. Vaishnava poets, Vedic poets) or to his having only a limited field of expression or imagination or to his deliberately limiting himself to certain experiences or emotions that are clear to him. To readers who feel these things ...

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... to an increasingly ethical and psychological view of Nature and the world and the gods,—and this, though by no means certain, is for the present the accepted view 1 —we must suppose that the Vedic poets were at least already advancing from the physical and naturalistic conception of the gods to the ethical and the spiritual. But Saraswati is not only the goddess of Inspiration, she is at one and ...

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... levels would not be the end of the divine march, a culmination that left nothing more to be achieved on earth. For there would be still yet higher levels within the supramental realm, as the old Vedic poets knew when they spoke of the spiritual life as a constant ascent,— brahmāṇas tvā śatakrato     ud vaṁśam iva yemire; yat sānoḥ sānum āruhat,     bhūri aspaṣṭa kartvam,— The priests of ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Human Cycle
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... important, sometimes a leading part, but even that can only be a support or an influence; the thinking mind may help to give a final shape, a great and large form, saṁ mahemā manīṣayā , as the Vedic poets said of the Mantra, but the word must start first from a more intimate sense in the heart of the inner being, hṛdā taṣṭam ; it is the spirit within and not the mind without that is the fount of ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Future Poetry
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... Scriptures—Veda, Upanishads, Gita,—it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual impulse, an uplifting, even certain kinds of realisation. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience. The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras , they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II
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... highest creation where is the intensest power of basic unity and sameness and on that supporting basis the intensest power of appropriate and gov-erned diversity. Metre was in the thought of the Vedic poets the reproduction in speech of great creative world-rhythms; it is not a mere formal construction, though it may be made by the mind into even such a lifeless form: but even that lifeless form or ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Talks on Poetry
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... most important legends of the Veda is the legend of the Angirasas. Its theme is the spiritual life of man but, to make it concrete to themselves and while veiling its secrets from the unfit, the Vedic poets expressed it in poetic images drawn from outward life. The Angirasas are pilgrims of the light. They are those who travel towards the goal and attain to the highest, "they who travel to and attain ...

... — as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures, Veda, Upanishads, Gita, it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual and uplifting impulse, even certain kinds of realisation.... "The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others.... I have had in former times many illuminations, even initial ...

... characteristic of the Vedic religion. Is it entirely without significance that to the Vedic mind men were essentially manu, thinkers, the original father of the race was the first Thinker, and the Vedic poets in the idea of their contemporaries not merely priests or sacred singers or wise bards but much more characteristically manishis & rishis, thinkers & sages?We can conceive with difficulty such ideas ...

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... should be the other legendary stories we find in the Rig Veda of the help given by the Gods to the Rishis against the demons; for these also are related in similar terms and constantly classed by the Vedic poets along with the Angiras story as on the same footing. Similarly if these Dasyus who refuse the gift and the sacrifice, and hate the Word and the gods and with whom the Aryans are constantly at ...

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... has gone before and to which we may attempt some kind of answer. I have spoken in the beginning of the Mantra as the highest and intensest revealing form of poetic thought and expression. What the Vedic poets meant by the Mantra was an inspired and revealed seeing and visioned thinking, attended by a realisation, to use the ponderous but necessary modern word, of some inmost truth of God and self and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Future Poetry
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... diversity. In poetic speech metre gives us this intensest power of basic unity and sameness—rhythmic variation gives us this intensest power of expressive diversity. Metre was in the thought of the Vedic poets the reproduction in speech of great creative world-rhythms; it is not a mere formal construction, though it may be made by the mind into even such a lifeless form: but even that lifeless form or ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Future Poetry
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... and so to embrace and has given us the ordinary Sanskrit word for friend, mitra , as well as the archaic Vedic word for bliss, mayas . Upon the current sense of the word mitra , the Friend, the Vedic poets continually rely for their covert key to the psychological function of this apparent sungod. When the other deities and especially the brilliant Agni are spoken of as helpful friends to the human ...

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... In connection with the symbol of the Sun a notable and most significant verse in a hymn of the fifth Mandala may here be mentioned; for it shows not only the profound mystic symbolism of the Vedic poets, but also how the writers of the Upanishads Page 16 understood the Rig Veda and justifies their belief in the inspired knowledge of their forerunners. "There is a Truth covered by a Truth ...

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... and seek the superconscient ocean above; and from above that ocean sends downward its rivers of the light and truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus in images of physical Nature the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension. That ascension has already been effected by the Ancients, the human forefathers, and the spirits of these great Ancestors still assist their offspring; ...

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... Homer. The Rishis were the mystics of the time and took the form of their symbolic images from the material life around them." What are we to conclude from this? We may be sure of one thing: the Vedic poets, if they had not been mystics, would have written with the subtle physical plane as their common poise of expressive consciousness. From this we may hazard the guess that when the luminosity of the ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Talks on Poetry
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... highest creation where is the intensest power of basic unity and sameness and on that supporting basis the in-tensest power of appropriate and governed diversity. Metre was in the thought of the Vedic poets the reproduction in speech of great creative world-rhythms; it is not a mere formal construction, though it may be made by the mind into even such a lifeless form: but even that lifeless form or ...

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... highest creation where is the intensest power of basic unity and sameness and on that supporting basis the intensest power of appropriate and governed diversity.... Metre was in the thought of the Vedic poets the reproduction in speech of great creative world-rhythms; it is not a mere formal construction, though it may be made by the mind into even such a lifeless form: but even that lifeless form ...

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... above everything else, though this truth, being Eternal, has always a mould of Beauty because out of an infinite self-existent Bliss it is projected into basic cosmic creation and activity. The Vedic poets call themselves "seers and hearers of Truth". Your two definitions bring in seeing and hearing, by means of the words "lightning" and "music" but in separate lines. How about trying to combine them ...

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... highest creation where is the intensest power of basic unity and sameness and on that supporting basis the intensest power of appropriate and governed diversity. ... Metre was in the thought of the Vedic poets the reproduction in speech of great creative world-rhythms; it is not a mere formal construction, though it may be made by the mind into even such a lifeless form: but even that lifeless form ...

... in the Land of the Seven Seas and of the ransacking of these by Aryans under the leadership of the war-god Indra. The whole thing cannot be brushed aside as a mere figment of imagination of the Vedic poets for the simple reason that those who have never seen any city cannot refer to these: the Vedic peoples themselves could by no stretch of imagination be city-dwellers, it being overwhelmingly obvious ...

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... upwards and they seek the Superconscient Ocean above. That upper ocean sends downwards its rivers of the light, truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus, in the ocean of physical Nature, the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension. The science and practice of that spiritual ascension is the secret science of the Veda or of the Vedic Yoga, the aim of which is immortality. This science ...

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... most important legends of the Veda is the legend of the Angirasas. Its theme is the spiritual life of man but, to make it concrete to themselves and while veiling its secrets from the unfit, the Vedic poets expressed it in poetic images drawn from outward life. The Angirasas are pilgrims of the lights. They are those who travel towards the goal and attain to the highest, 'they who travel to and attain ...

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... indissolubly one, — a highest intensity of rhythmic movement, a highest intensity of interwoven verbal form and thought-substance, of style, and a highest intensity of the soul's vision of truth. The Vedic poets are, in Sri Aurobindo's view, masters of a consummate technique and their rhythms are carved like chariots of the gods and borne on divine and ample wings of sound and are at once concentrated and ...

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... ordinary (non-spiritual) poetry? If there is sameness of expression in spiritual poems, it is due either to the poet's binding himself by the tradition of a fixed set of symbols (e.g. Vaishnava poets, Vedic poets) or to his having only a limited field of expression or imagination or to his deliberately limiting himself to certain experiences or emotions that are dear to him. To readers who feel these things ...

... moving but what is at the same time, inspiring, invigorating, elevating. Truth is indeed beauty but it is not always the beauty that captivates the eye or the mere aesthetic sense. And because our Vedic poets always looked beyond humani­ty, beyond earth, therefore could they make divine poetry of humanity and what is of earth. Therefore it was that they were pervadingly so grandiose and sublime and puissant ...

... would not be the end of the divine march, a culmination that left nothing more to be achieved on earth. For there would be still yet higher levels within the supramental realm, 385 as the old Vedic poets knew when they spoke of the spiritual life as a constant ascent, 386 – "The priests of the word climb thee like a ladder, O hundred-powered. As one ascends from peak to peak, there ...

... meant to reveal to the initiates what they concealed from the ignorant, are to all appearance crudely concrete, intimately personal, loosely occasional and allusive. To this lax outer garb the Vedic poets are sometimes careful to give a clear and coherent form quite other than the strenuous inner soul of their meaning; their language then becomes a cunningly woven mask for hidden truths. More often ...

... A. Vedic Conception of the Poet 'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god.. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his... substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names. 4 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation—the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth. 5 The form of beauty is the body of the Truth. The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune ... Bliss and Delight. The Vedic Poet is doubtless the poet of Life, the architect of Divinity in man, of Heaven upon earth. But what is true of Life is fundamentally true of Art too—at least true of the Art as it was conceived by the ancient seers and as it found expression at their hands. 3 1 Rig Veda, 111. 38. 2. 3. 2 Ibid., 1. 24. I. 3 The Vedic term Kavi means literally ...

... A Vedic Conception of the Poet 'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic... works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names. 4 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth. 5 The form of beauty is the body of the Truth. The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of... Bliss and Delight. The Vedic Poet is doubtless the poet of Life, the architect of Divinity in man, of Heaven upon earth. But what is true of Life is fundamentally true of Art too-at least true of the Art as it was conceived by the ancient seers and as it found expression at their hands.³ ¹ Rig Veda, 111. 38. 2. 3. ² Ibid., 1. 24. 1. ³ The Vedic term Kavi means literally ...

... Nature, departures from the instinctive guiding of the Inconscient Self which generate that vast element of ignorance, falsehood and suffering in human life,—that "much falsehood in us" of which the Vedic poet complains. Where then lies the hope that mind will repair its errors and guide itself according to the truth of things? The hope lies in Science, in the intelligent observation, utilising, initiation... For this knowledge was not first discovered in the comparatively late antiquity that gave us the Upanishads which we now possess. It is already there in the dateless verses of the Rig Veda, and the Vedic sages speak of it as the discovery of yet more ancient seers besides whom they themselves were new and modern. Emerging from the periods of eclipse and the nights of ignorance which overtake humanity ...

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... departures from the instinctive guiding of the Inconscient Self which generate that vast element of ignorance, falsehood and suffering in human life, — that "much falsehood in us" of which the Vedic poet complains. Where then lies the hope that mind will repair its errors and guide itself according to the truth of things? The hope lies in Science, in the intelligent observation, utilising... For this knowledge was not first discovered in the comparatively late antiquity that gave us the Upanishads which we now possess. It is already there in the dateless verses of the Rig Veda, and the Vedic sages speak of it as the discovery of yet more ancient seers besides whom they themselves were new and modern. Emerging from the periods of eclipse and the nights of ignorance which overtake humanity ...

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... description of the creative Deity, from Page 204 whose mouth, arms, thighs and feet, the four orders are said to have sprung up, is not merely a poetical image. The Creator's body was to the Vedic poet more than an image; it expressed the divine reality. Human society for them was an attempt to express in life the cosmic Purusha. Man and cosmos are both symbols and expressions of the same hidden... ideal of fraternity fulfils both liberty and equality, extracting them both from their antimonies, and it provides to both of them the alchemy of living realisation. Its message is none other than the Vedic message, which calls upon all to move together and to commune together in common partnership, comradeship and brotherhood, — samgacchadhvam samvadadhvam. These three ideals are entirely capable of ...

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... noted that the greater romantic poets did not shun thought; they thought abundantly, almost endlessly. They have their characteristic view of life, something that one might call their philosophy, their world-view, and they express it. Keats was the most romantic of poets, but he could write "To philosophise I dare not yet"; he did not write "I am too much of a poet to philosophise." To philosophise... but a symbol. You can't expect the lake merely to ripple and do nothing else or the swan simply to swim and eat and do nothing else. It is as much a symbol as the Bird of Fire or the Bird of the Vedic poet who faced the guardians of the Soma and brought the Soma to Indra (or was it to a Rishi? I have forgotten)—perhaps carrying a pot or several pots in his claws and beak!! for I don't know how else... outward appearance of it is one of the elegances of this art. But all poetry is not of this kind; its rule does not apply to poets like Homer or Valmiki or other early writers. The Veda might almost be described as a mass of repetitions; so might the work of Vaishnava poets and the poetic literature of devotion generally in India. Arnold has noted this distinction when speaking of Homer; he mentioned ...

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... experiences, and enlargements of knowledge and power. They have been an original great synthesis, based upon some supreme realisations, and yet opening further gates of discoveries. In the words of the Vedic poet: brahmānas tvā śatakrata ud vamśam iva yemire / yat sānoh sānum āruhad bhūry aspasta kartvam // Rgveda l.10.1-2 'The priests of the word climb thee like a ladder ...

... with him in the art of appreciating and discriminating the levels of overhead aesthesis towards which genuine poetry is steadily moving. It is said that Persian poets were poetry itself and we may apply the same to this Parsi poet; Zarathrushtra formed his religion by praising beauty in Nature and Amal Kiran as his descendent has taken liberty, under the wide and luminous wings of Sri Aurobindo... relationship of the two birds with each other as that one of the infinite being and the finite self, though putting these two in man himself may not be quite justifiable. The style of a Vedic Rishi-Poet can be "deep and mystic" or can have "melodious lucidity" or be "puissant and energetic" or flow with "even harmonies" and unless it is fully grasped the verses cannot be truly cognised... deep And scatter no more abroad: For after music comes sleep And sleep is the music of God. Here we have the poet of the 1930s to whom we may extend Sri Aurobindo's assessment of his early promising youth: he is some "Vedic Marut with golden weapons, golden ornaments, car of gold, throwing in front of him continual lightnings of thought". There are great after-musics ...

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... Sri Krishna, I conjecture, may have complained about his lungs because of his incessant blowing and fluting to melt our hard hearts. It is an idea! Strange that none of the poets has mentioned it—a modernist poet would catch at it at once, "The Flute and the Lungs," or "Krishna's Bronchitis." I am knocking about with Kanai and trying some joint meditation in the hope of getting something... the Horse—or the Force. You seem to read what I write in a queer way and put on it very strange [constructions]. I wonder if it is possible to make prodigious and unusual poets like NK. Was NK a prodigious and unusual poet before he came here? You seem to be so obsessed by the present development that you assume it was always there and he did it all of himself from the beginning. Lastly about... but a symbol. You can't expect the lake merely to ripple and do nothing else or the swan simply to swim and eat and do nothing else. It is as much a symbol as the Bird of Fire or the Bird of the Vedic poet who faced the guardians of the Soma and brought the Sonia to Indra (or was it to a Rishi, I have forgotten) perhaps carrying a pot or several pots in his claws and beak!! for I don't know how else ...

... the Sun-God, was the lord of the physical Sun; but he is at the same time to the Vedic seer-poet the giver of the rays of knowledge which illumine the mind and he is too the soul and energy and body of the spiritual illumination. And in all these powers he is a luminous form of the one and infinite Godhead. All the Vedic godheads have this outer and this inner and inmost function, their known and their... Brahmanas and Upanishads. Buddhism could easily have claimed for itself a Vedic origin and the claim would have been no less valid than the Vedic ascription of the Sankhya philosophy and discipline with which it had some points of intimate alliance. But what hurt Buddhism and determined in the end its rejection, was not its denial of a Vedic origin or authority, but the exclusive trenchancy of its intellectual... supports all the process of life and develops the action of Nature. But even in its external or exoteric side the Vedic religion did not limit itself to this acceptance and regulation of the first Page 199 religious notions of the natural physical mind of man. The Vedic Rishis gave a psychic function to the godheads worshipped by the people; they spoke to them of a higher Truth, Right ...

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... contemporary critics even. "Nothing can be more futile than for a poet to write in expectation of contemporary fame or praise, however agreeable that may be, if it comes; but it is not of much value; for very poor poets have enjoyed a great contemporary fame and very great poets have been neglected in their time. A poet has to go on his way, trying to gather hints from what people say for or... Aurobindo's writings, though I do richly in Tagore, in Kalidasa's wonderful Meghaduta, in the Vedic Hymns, even in Kabir, a religious poet. In fact not all Indians of repute admire Sri Aurobindo as a poet either. Keshav Malik agrees with me - true, Keshav is perhaps a westernized and secular poet - but so does my friend and teacher Prince Kumar who has just been here -he was a friend of Ta... Aurobindo: Page 47 "If you send your poems to five different poets, you are likely to get five absolutely disparate and discordant estimates of them. A poet likes only the poetry that appeals to his own temperament or taste, the" rest he condemns or ignores. (My own case is different, because I am not primarily a poet and have made in criticism a practice of appreciating everything that can ...

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... “knower of the Word” the Vedic Rishis spoke of, “the priest of the Word,” 57 “the one who does” by simply invoking the truth of things, poits – he is the Poet of the future age. And his poem is an outpouring of truth whose every fact-creating and matter-creating syllable is attuned to the Great Harmony: a re-creation of matter through the music of truth in matter. He is the Poet of Matter. Through... open up an unexpected trail and a whole chain of answers and new opportunities. The seeker, the fervent one, then intimately understands the invocation of this five – or six-thousand-year-old Vedic poet: “O Fire, let there be created in us the correct thought that springs from Thee.” 24 But wrong thoughts, too, are a surprising source of discoveries. As a matter of fact, more and more, he... is reborn from its own joy – one dies only from lack of joy and in order to find an ever greater joy. * This all, this great all has been seen by sages in their visions and by a few rare poets and thinkers: “All this is Brahman immortal, naught else; Brahman is in front of us, Brahman behind us, to the south of us and to the North of us and below us and above us; it stretches everywhere ...

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