{"id":1319,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:05","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:05","slug":"36-sources-of-poetic-inspiration-and-vision-mystic-and-spiritual-poetry-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/09-the-future-poetry-volume-09\/36-sources-of-poetic-inspiration-and-vision-mystic-and-spiritual-poetry-vol-09-the-future-poetry-volume-09","title":{"rendered":"-36_Sources of Poetic Inspiration and Vision Mystic and Spiritual Poetry.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n
\n

s<\/font>ection
\n<\/font> <\/span>
\nT<\/font>WO<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\nSources of Poetic Inspiration and Vision Mystic and Spiritual Poetry<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

POETRY OF PHYSICAL CONSCIOUSNESS<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/b><\/p>\n

C<\/font>ertainly \u2014 Homer and Chaucer are poets of the physical
\nconsciousness. I have pointed that out in The Future Poetry.\u00b9<\/i><\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Y<\/font>ou cant drive a sharp line between the
\nsubtle physical and physical like that in these matters. If a poet wrote from
\nthe out\u00adward physical only, his work is likely to be more photographic than
\npoetic.<\/p>\n

31.5.1937<\/p>\n

\n\t3<\/b><\/p>\n

The Vedic times were an age in which men
\nlived in the material consciousness as did the heroes of Homer. The Rishis were
\nthe mystics of the time and took the form of their symbolic imagery from the
\nmaterial life around them.<\/p>\n

20.10.1936<\/p>\n

MENTAL AND VITAL POETRY<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAll poetry is mental or vital or both, sometimes with a psychic tinge; the power
\nfrom above mind comes in only in rare lines and passages lifting up the mental
\nand vital inspiration towards its own light and power. To work freely from that
\nhidden inspira\u00adtion is a thing that has not been done though certain tendencies
\nof modern poetry seem to be an unconscious attempt to prepare for that. But in
\nthe mind and vital there are many provinces and kingdoms and what you have been
\nwriting recently is by no means from the ordinary mind or vital; its inspiration
\ncomes from a higher or deeper occult or inner source<\/p>\n

17.5.1937<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/font><\/span>\u00b9 See
\npp. 59-62.<\/font><\/p>\n

 Page –
\n339<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

CHARACTERISTICS OF VITAL POETRY<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I mean by vital poetry is that in which
\nappeal to sense or sensation, to the vital thrill, is so dominant that the
\nmental content of the poetry takes quite a secondary place. Either word and
\nsound tend to predominate over sense or else the nerves and blood are thrilled
\n(e.g. in war poetry) but the mind and soul do not find an equal satisfaction.
\nThis does not mean that there is to be no vital element in poetry \u2014 without the
\nvital nothing living can be done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE WORLD OF WORD-MUSIC<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

N seems to have put himself into contact with
\nan inexhaustible source of flowing words and rhythm \u2014 with the world of
\nword-music, which is one province of the World of Beauty. It is part of the
\nvital world no doubt and the joy that comes of contact with that beauty is
\nvital but it is a subtle vital which is not merely sensuous. It is one of the
\npowers by which the substance of the consciousness can be refined and prepared
\nfor sensibility to a still higher beauty and Ananda. Also it can be made a
\nvehicle for the expression of the highest things. The Veda the Upanishad, the
\nMantra, everywhere owe half their power to the rhythmic sound that embodies
\ntheir inner meanings.<\/p>\n

2.3.1936<\/p>\n

                      EARTH-MEMORY \u2014 SUBTLE-VITAL WORLD
\nOF CREATIVE ART\u00a0 <\/span>\u2014 DREAM INSPIRATION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is an earth-memory from which one gets
\nor can get things of the past more or less accurately according to the quality
\nof the mind that receives them. But this experience is not explicable on that
\nbasis \u2014 for the Gopis here are evidently not earthly beings and the place R saw
\nwas not a terrestrial locality. If she had got it from the earth-mind at all,
\nit could only be from the world of images created by Vaishnava tradition with
\nperhaps a<\/p>\n

 Page –
\n340<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

personal transcription of her own. But this also
\ndoes not agree with all the details.<\/p>\n

It is quite usual for poets and musicians and
\nartists to receive things \u2014 they can even be received complete and direct,
\nthough oftenest with some working of the individual mind and conse\u00adquent
\nalteration \u2014 from a plane above the physical mind, a vital world of creative
\nart and beauty in which these things are pre\u00adpared and come down through the
\nfit channel. The musician, poet or artist, if he is conscious, may be quite
\naware and sensitive of this transmission, even feel or see something of the
\nplane from which it comes. Usually, however, this is in the waking state and
\nthe contact is not so vivid as that felt by R.<\/p>\n

There are such things as dream inspirations \u2014
\nit is rare, however, that these are of any value. For the dreams of most people
\nare recorded by the subconscient. Either the whole thing is a creation of the
\nsubconscient and turns out, if recorded, to be incoherent and lacking in,
\n"any sense, or, if there is a real com\u00admunication from a higher plane,
\nmarked by a sense of elevation and wonder, it gets transcribed by the
\nsubconscient and what that forms is either flat or ludicrous. Moreover, this
\nwas seen between sleep and waking \u2014 and things so seen are not dreams, but
\nexperiences from other planes either mental or vital or subtle physical or more
\nrarely psychic or higher plane experiences.<\/p>\n

In this case it is very possible that she got
\ninto some kind of connection with the actual world of Krisna and the Gopis
\nthrough the vital. This seems to be indicated first by the sense of extreme
\nrapture and light and beauty and secondly, by the con\u00adtact with the "Blue
\nRadiance" that was Krishna \u2014 that phrase and the
\nexpressions she uses have a strong touch of something that was authentic. I say
\nthrough the vital, because of course it was presented to her in forms and words
\nthat her human mind could seize and understand; the original forms of that
\nworld would be something that could hardly be seizable by the human sense. The
\nHindi words of course belong to the transcribing agency. That would not mean
\nthat it was a creation of her per\u00adsonal mind, but only a transcription given to
\nher, just within the bounds of what it could seize, even though unfamiliar to
\nher waking consciousness. Once the receptivity of the mind awakened,
\n <\/p>\n

Page – 341<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

the rest came to her freely through the channel created by the
\nvision. That her mind did not create the song is confirmed by the fact that it
\ncame in Hindi with so much perfection of langu\u00adage and technique.<\/p>\n

\nTo anyone familiar with occult phenomena and their analysis these things will
\nseem perfectly normal and intelligible. The vision-mind in us is part of the
\ninner being, and the inner mind, vital, physical are not bound by the dull and
\nnarrow limi\u00adtations of our outer physical personality and the small scope of the
\nworld it lives in. Its scope is vast, extraordinary, full of inex\u00adhaustible
\ninterest and, as one goes higher, of glory and sweetness and beauty. The
\ndifficulty is to get it through the outer human instruments which are so narrow
\nand crippled and unwilling to receive them<\/p>\n

\n\t9.6.<\/i>1935<\/p>\n

THE HIGHER<\/font><\/span><\/b> MIND AND POETIC<\/span>
\nINTELLIGENCE \u2014 THE<\/span> INNER MIND <\/b>
\n<\/font>AND DYNAMIC VISION<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of
\nspiritual conscious\u00adness where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the
\nSelf, the One everywhere and knows and sees things habitually with that
\nawareness; but it is still very much on the mind level although highly
\nspiritual in its essential substance; and its instru\u00admentation is through an
\nelevated thought-power and compre\u00adhensive mental sight \u2014 not illumined by any
\nof the intenser upper lights but as if in a large strong and clear daylight. It
\nacts as an intermediate state between the Truth-Light above and the human mind;
\ncommunicating the higher knowledge in a form that the Mind intensified,
\nbroadened, made spiritually sup\u00adple, can receive without being blinded or
\ndazzled by a Truth be\u00adyond it. The poetic intelligence is not at all part of
\nthat clarified spiritual seeing and thinking \u2014 it is only a high activity of
\nthe mind and its vision moving on the wings of imagination, but still akin to
\nthe intellect proper, though exalted above it. The Higher Mind is a spiritual
\nplane, – this does not answer to that descrip\u00adtion. But the larger poetic
\nintelligence like the larger philosophic, <\/p>\n

\nPage –
\n342<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

though in a different cast of thinking, is nearer
\nto the Higher Mind than the ordinary intellect and can more easily receive its
\ninfluence. When Milton starts his
\npoem<\/p>\n

Of Man’s first
\ndisobedience, and the fruit<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Of that forbidden tree \u2014<\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

he is evidently writing from the poetic intelligence. There is no\u00adthing
\nof the Higher Mind knowledge or vision either in the style or the substance.
\nBut there is often a largeness of rhythm and sweep of language in Milton which
\nhas a certain distant kinship to the manner natural to a higher
\nsupra-intellectual vision, and something from the substance of the planes of
\nspiritual seeing can come into this poetry whose medium is the poetic
\nintelligence and uplift it.<\/p>\n

Milton
\nis a classical poet and most classical poetry is funda\u00admentally a poetry of the
\npure poetic intelligence. But there are other influences which can suffuse and
\nmodify the pure poetic intelligence, making it perhaps less clear by limitation
\nbut more vivid, colourful, vivid with various lights and hues; it becomes less
\nintellectual, more made of vision and a flame of insight. Very often this comes
\nby an infiltration of the veiled inner Mind which is within us and has its own
\nwider and deeper fields and subtler movements, \u2014 and can bring also the tinge of
\na higher afflatus to the poetic intelligence, sometimes a direct uplifting
\ntowards what is beyond it. It must be understood however that the greatness of
\npoetry as poetry does not necessarily or always depend on the level from which
\nit is written. Shelley has more access to the inner Mind and through it to
\ngreater things than Milton, but he
\nis not the greater poet.<\/p>\n

When I say that the inner
\nMind can get the tinge or reflec\u00adtion of the higher experience I am not
\nspeaking here of the "de\u00adscent" in Yoga by which the higher
\nrealisation can come down into the inferior planes and enlighten or transform
\nthem. I mean that the Higher Mind is itself a spiritual plane and one who lives
\nin it has naturally and normally the realisation of the Self, the unity and harmony
\neverywhere, and a vision and activity of knowledge that proceeds from this
\nconsciousness but the inner <\/i><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n– 343<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

Mind has not that naturally and in its own right,
\nyet can open to its influence more easily than the outer intelligence. All the
\nsame, between the reflected realisation in the mind and the auto\u00admatic and
\nauthentic realisation in the spiritual mental planes there is a wide
\ndifference.<\/p>\n

There is also a plane of dynamic vision which
\nis a part of the inner Mind and perhaps should be called not a plane but a pro\u00advince.
\nThere are many kinds of vision in the inner Mind and not this dynamic vision
\nalone. So, to fix invariable characteristics for the poetry of the inner Mind
\nis not easy or even possible; it is a thing to be felt rather than\u00a0 <\/span>mentally definable. A certain spontaneous
\nintensity of vision is usually there, but that large or rich sweep or power
\nwhich belongs to the Illumined Mind is not part of its character. Moreover, it
\nis subtle and fine and has not the wideness which is the characteristic of the
\nplanes that rise towards the vast universality of the Overmind level.<\/p>\n

    That is why the lower planes cannot express
\nthe Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do \u2014 unless some\u00adthing
\ncomes down into them from the higher and overrides their limitations for the
\nmoment.<\/p>\n

1936<\/p>\n

\nPOETIC INTELLIGENCE AND DYNAMIC VISION<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On<\/span>
\none [the plane of poetic intelligence] the creation is by thought, by the
\nidea-force and images constructed by the idea, mind-images; on the other [the
\nplane of dynamic vision] one creates by sight, by direct vision either of the
\nthing in itself or by some living significant symbol or expressive body of it.
\nThis dy\u00adnamic sight is not the vision that comes by an intense reconstruction
\nof physical seeing or through vital experience (e.g. Shakespeare’s), it is a
\nkind of occult sight which sees the things behind the veil, the forms that are
\nmore intimate and expressive than any outward appearance. It is a very vivid
\nsight and the expression that comes with it is also extremely vivid and living
\nbut with a sort of inner super-life. To be able to write at will from this
\nplane is sufficiently rare, \u2014 though a poet habitually writing from some<\/p>\n

\nPage –
\n344<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

other level may
\nstumble into it from time to time.<\/p>\n

9.7.1931<\/p>\n

SPIRITUAL INSPIRATION AND POETIC RHETORIC<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Manmohan’s
\npoem\u00b9 has a considerable elevation of thought, diction and rhythm. It is
\ncertainly a fine production and, if all had been equal to the first three lines
\nwhich are pure and perfect in inspiration, the sonnet might have stood among
\nthe finest things in the English language. But somehow it fails as a whole. The
\nreason is that the intellectual mind took up the work of trans\u00adcription and a
\nMiltonic rhetorical note comes in; all begins to be thought rather than seen or
\nfelt; the poet seems to be writing what he thinks he ought to write on such a
\nsubject and doing it very well \u2014 one admires, the mind is moved and the vital
\nstirred, but the deeper satisfying spiritual thrill which the first lines set
\nout to give is no longer there. Already in the fourth line there is the touch
\nof poetic rhetoric. The original afflatus continues to persist behind, but can
\nno longer speak itself out in its native language; there is a mental
\ntranslation. It tries indeed to get back \u2014<\/p>\n

Eyes elder
\nthan the light; cheek that no flower <\/i><\/p>\n

Remembers \u2014<\/i><\/p>\n

then loses almost
\naltogether \u2014 what follows is purely mental.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9 Augustest!
\ndearest! whom no thought can trace, <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Name murmuring out of birth’s infinity,
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Mother! like heaven’s great face is thy
\nsweet face, <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Stupendous with the mystery of me.
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Eyes elder than the light; cheek that no
\nflower <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Remembers; brow at which my infant care
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Gazed weeping up and saw the skies enshower
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>With tender rain of vast mysterious hair!
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Thou, at whose breast the sunbeams sucked,
\nwhose arm <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Cradled the lisping ocean, art thou she,
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Goddess! at whose dim heart the world’s deep
\ncharm, <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Tears, terrors, throbbing things were yet to
\nbe ? <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>She, from whose tearing pangs in glory first
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nI and the infinite wide heavens
\nburst ?<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u2014Manmohan
\nGhose<\/font> <\/p>\n

Page – 345<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Another effort brings the eighth
\nline which is undoubtedly very fine and has sight behind it. Then there is a
\ncompromise; the spiritual seeing mind seems to say to the thinking poetic
\nintellect, "All right, have it your own way \u2014 I will try at least to keep
\nyou up at your best", and we have the three lines that follow those two
\nothers that are forcible and vivid poetic (very poetic) rhetoric \u2014 finally a
\nclose that goes back to the level of the "stupendous mystery". No, it
\nis not a "splendid confusion" \u2014 the poem is well-constructed from the
\npoint of view of arrangement of the thought, so there can be no confusion. It
\nis the work of a poet who got into touch with some high level of spiritual
\nsight, a living vision of some spirit truth, but, that not being his native
\ndomain, could not keep its perfect voice throughout and mixed his inspi\u00adration
\n\u2014 that seems to me the true estimate. A very fine poem, all the same.<\/p>\n

1934<\/p>\n

\nA PERSONAL APPRECIATION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

1<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is not a relapse, but an oscillation which one finds in almost every
\npoet. Each has a general level, a highest level and a lower range in which some
\ndefects of his poetical faculty come out. You have three manners: (1) a sort of
\ndecorative romantic man\u00adner that survives from your early days \u2014 this at a
\nlower pitch turns to too much dressiness of an ornamental kind, at a higher to
\npost-Victorian. Edwardian or Georgian rhetoric with a fre\u00adquent saving touch of
\nYeats; (2) a level at which all is fused into a fine intuitive authenticity and
\nbeauty, there is seldom anything to change; (3) a higher level of grander
\nmovement and language in which you pull down or reach the influences of the
\nHigher Mind, Illumined Mind, Overmind Intuition. The last you have not yet
\nfully mastered so as to write with an absolute certainty and faultlessness
\nexcept by lines and stanzas or else as a whole in rare moments of total
\ninspiration, but you are moving towards mastery in it. Sometimes these
\ninspirations get mixed up together<\/p>\n

Page – 346<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It<\/span> is this straining towards greater height that creates the
\n\t\tdifficulty, yet it is indispensable for the evolution of your genius. It
\n\t\tis not surprising, therefore, that inspiration comes with diffi\u00adculty
\n\t\toften, or that there are dormant periods or returns of the decorative
\n\t\tinspiration. All that is part of the day’s work and dejection is quite
\n\t\tout of place<\/p>\n

20.4.1937<\/p>\n

\n\t\t2<\/span><\/p>\n

The defect of what was
\ncalled Georgian poetry \u2014 though I suppose it would more properly be called
\nlate-Victorian-Edwardian-early-Georgian \u2014 is that it has fullness of language
\nwhich fails to go home \u2014 things that ought to be very fine, but miss being so;
\nso much of the poetry of Rupert Brooke as I have seen, for instance, always
\ngives me that impression. In our own language I might say that it is an
\ninspiration which tries to come from the Higher Mind but only succeeds in
\ninflating the voice of the poetic intelligence<\/p>\n

1.11.1936<\/p>\n

                                                                                                                  
\n     3<\/b><\/p>\n

It ["poetic eloquence"] belongs to the poetic intelligence, but
\nas in most of Milton, it can be
\nlifted up by the touch of the Higher Mind rhythm and language.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t29-11-1936<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t4<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The line\u00b9 is strong
\nand dignified, but it impresses me as too mental and Miltonic. Milton
\nhas very usually (in Paradise<\/i> Lost)<\/i>some of
\nthe largeness and rhythm of the Higher Mind, but his substance is \u2014 except at
\ncertain heights \u2014 mental, mentally grand and noble. The interference of the
\nmental Miltonic is one of the great stumbling-blocks when one tries to write
\nfrom "above".<\/p>\n

17.11.1936<\/p>\n

\u00b9 "An ultimate
\ncrown of inexhaustible joy."<\/font><\/p>\n

Page – 347<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n


\n\t\t5<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

By<\/span> pseudo-Miltonic I mean a certain
\nkind of traditional poetic eloquence which finds its roots in Milton but even
\nwhen well done lacks in originality and can easily be vapid and sometimes
\nhollow…. An expression like "lofty region", "vasty
\nregion", "myriad region" even expresses nothing but a bare intellectual
\nfact \u2014 with no more vision in it than would convey mere wide-ness without any
\nsignificance in it.<\/p>\n

13.10.1936<\/p>\n

6<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly if you
\nwant to achieve a greater poetry, more unique, you will yourself have to
\nchange, to alter the poise of your consciousness. At present you write, as you
\ndo other things, too much with the brain, the mere human intelligence. To get
\nback from the surface vital into the psychic and psychic vital, to raise the
\nlevel of your mental from the intellect to the Illumined Mind is your need both
\nin poetry and in Yoga. I have told you already that your best poetry comes from
\nthe Illumined Mind, but as a rule it either comes from there with too much of
\nthe transcription diminished in its passage through the intellect or else is
\ngenerated only in the creative poetic intelligence. But so many poets have
\nwritten from that intelligence. If you could always write direct from the
\nIllumined Mind \u2014 finding there not only the substance, as you often do, but the
\nrhythm and language, that indeed would be a poetry exquisite, original and
\nunique, The intellect produces the idea, even the poetic idea, too much for the
\nsake of the idea alone; coming from the Illumined Mind the idea in a form of
\nlight and music is itself but the shining body of the Light Divine.<\/p>\n

On the other hand
\nto cease writing altogether might be a doubtful remedy. By your writing here
\nyou have at least got rid of most of your former defects, and reached a stage
\nof prepara\u00adtion in which you may reasonably hope for a greater develop\u00adment
\nhereafter. I myself have more than once abstained for some time from writing
\nbecause I did not wish to produce anything
\n <\/p>\n

Page – 348<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

except as an
\nexpression from a higher plane of conscious\u00adness but to do that you must be
\nsure of your poetic gift, that it will not rust by too long a disuse!<\/p>\n

4.9.1931<\/p>\n

7<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I do not know why this fancy has seized on you to follow in the trace of
\nothers. No good work is likely to come out of such a second-hand motive. Let me
\nadd that this poem\u00b9 of Coleridge is a masterpiece, not because it is the
\nquintessence of romantic poetry, but because it is a genuine supraphysical
\nexperience caught and rendered in a rare hour of exaltation with an abso\u00adlute
\naccuracy of vision and authenticity of rhythm. Further, romantic poetry could
\nbe genuine in the early nineteenth century, but the attempt to walk back into
\nit in\u00a0 <\/span>the year 1931 is not likely to be
\na success, it can only result in an artificial literary exercise. You have a
\ngenuine vein of poetic inspiration some\u00adwhere above your intellect which comes
\nthrough sometimes when the said intellect can be induced to be quiet and the
\nlower vital does not meddle. If I were you, I should try to find that always
\nand make the access to it free and the transcriptions from it pure (for then
\nyour writing becomes marvellously good); that would be a truer line of progress
\nthan these exercises.<\/p>\n

21.8.1931<\/p>\n

8<\/b><\/p>\n

What
\nhave you to do with what others have achieved? If you write poetry, it should
\nbe from the standpoint that you have something of your own which has not yet
\nfound full expression, a power within which you can place at the service of the
\nDivine and which can help you to grow \u2014 you have to get rid of all in it that
\nis merely mental or merely vital, to develop what is true and fine in it and
\nleave the rest until you can write from a higher level of consciousness things
\nthat come from the deepest self and the highest spiritual levels. Your question
\nis that of litt\u00e9rateur <\/i>and<\/p>\n

\n\u00b9 Kubla Khan<\/span><\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

Page
\n– 349<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

not in the right spirit. Besides,
\neven from a mental point of view such comparisons are quite idle…. You have
\nanother turn and gift and you have in the resources of Yoga a chance of
\nconstant progression and growth and of throwing all imperfections behind you.
\nMeasure what you do by the standard of your own possible perfection; what is the
\nuse of measuring it by the achievement of others ?<\/p>\n

1931<\/p>\n

\nPOETRY OF THE ILLUMINED MIND AND THE INTUITION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The poetry of the Illumined Mind is usually full of a play of lights and
\ncolours, brilliant and striking in phrase, for illumination makes the Truth vivid
\n\u2014 it acts usually by a luminous rush. The poetry of the Intuition may have a
\nplay of colour and bright lights, but it does not depend on them \u2014 it may be
\nquite bare, it tells by a sort of close intimacy with the Truth, an inward
\nexpression of it. The Illumined Mind sometimes gets rid of its trappings, but
\never then it always keeps a sort of lustrousness of robe which is its
\ncharacteristic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t1934<\/p>\n

\nPOETRY OF THE INTUITIVE MIND<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The intuitive mind, strictly speaking, stretches from the Intuition
\nproper down to the intuitivised inner mind \u2014 it is therefore at once an
\noverhead power and a mental intelligence power. All depends on the amount,
\nintensity, quality of the intuition and how far it is mixed with mind or pure.
\nThe inner mind is not necessarily intuitive, though it can easily become so.
\nThe mystic mind is turned towards the occult and spiritual, but the inner mind
\ncan act without direct reference to the occult and spiritual, it can act in the
\nsame field and in the same material as the ordi\u00adnary mind, only with a larger
\nand deeper power, range and light and in greater unison with the Universal
\nMind; it can open also more easily to what is within and what is above.
\nIntuitive intelligence, <\/p>\n

Page – 350<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

mystic mind, inner mind intelligence are all part of the inner mind
\noperations. In today’s poem, for instance \u2014 A Poet’s Stammer\u00b9 \u2014<\/i> it is
\ncertainly the inner mind that has trans\u00adformed the idea of stammering into a
\nsymbol of inner phenomena and into that operation a certain strain of mystic
\nmind enters, but what is prominent is the intuitive inspiration throughout.
\nIt <\/b>blends with the intuitive poetic intelligence in the first stanza, gets
\ntouched by the overhead intuition in the second, gets full of it in the third
\nand again rises rapidly to that in the two last lines of the fourth stanza.
\nThis is what I call poetry of the intuitive mind.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\u00a0<\/span>13.5.1937<\/p>\n

\n


\n"OVERHEAD"
\nPOETRY<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What you are writing now is "overhead" poetry \u2014 I mean poetry
\ninspired from those planes; before you used to write poems very often from the
\nintuitive mind \u2014 these had a beauty and perfec\u00adtion of their own. What I mean
\nby absoluteness here is a full intensely inevitable expression of what comes
\nfrom above. These lines are original, convincing, have vision, they are not to
\nbe re\u00adjected, but they are not the highest night except in single lines. Such
\nvariations are to be expected and will be more prominent if you were writing
\nlonger poems, for then to keep always or even usually to that highest level
\nwould be an extraordinary feat \u2014 no poet has managed as yet to write always at
\nhis highest flight and<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9 My dream is spoken<\/font><\/p>\n

As if by sound
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Were tremulously broken<\/font><\/p>\n

Some vow profound.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>A timeless hush<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Draws ever back
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The winging music-rush<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Upon thought’s track.
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Though syllables sweep<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Like golden birds,
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Far lonelihoods of sleep<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Dwindle my words.
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Beyond life’s clamour,<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>A mystery mars
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Speech-light to a myriad stammer<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>Of<\/font><\/span>
\nflickering stars.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Page – 351<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

here in that
\nkind of poetry it would be still more difficult. important point is not to fall
\nbelow a certain level.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

POETRY OF SPIRITUAL VISION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The spiritual vision must never be intellectual, philosophical or
\nabstract, it must always give the sense of something vivid, living and
\nconcrete, a thing of vibrant beauty or a thing of power. An abstract spiritual
\npoetry is possible but that is not A\u2019s manner. The poetry of spiritual vision
\nas distinct from that of spiritual thought abounds in images, unavoidably
\nbecause that is the straight way to avoid abstractness; but these images must
\nbe felt as very real and concrete things, otherwise they become like the images
\nused by the philosophic poets, decorative to the thought rather than realities
\nof the inner vision and experience.<\/p>\n

28.5.1937<\/p>\n

MYSTIC AND SPIRITUAL POETRY<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

1<\/b><\/p>\n

I
\nused the word mystic in the sense of a certain kind of inner seeing and feeling
\nof things, a way which to the intellect would seem occult and visionary \u2014 for
\nthis is something different from imagination and its work with which the
\nintellect is familiar. It was in this sense that I said D had not the mystic
\nmind and vision. One can go far in the spiritual way, have plenty of spiritual
\nexperiences, spiritual knowledge, spiritual feelings, significant visions and
\ndreams even without having this mystic mind and way of seeing things. So too one
\nmay write poetry from different planes or sources of inspiration and expressing
\nspiritual feelings, knowledge, experiences and yet use the poetic intelligence
\nas the thought medium which gives them shape in speech; such poems are not of
\nthe mystic type. One may be mystic in this sense without being spiritual \u2014 one
\nmay also be spiritual without being mystic; or one may be both spiritual and
\nmystic in one. Poems ditto.<\/p>\n

Page – 352<\/font><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

2<\/b><\/p>\n

Mystic poetry has a
\nperfectly concrete meaning much more than intellectual poetry which is much more
\nabstract. The nature of the intellect is abstraction; spirituality and mysticism
\ndeal with the concrete by their very nature.<\/p>\n

8.12.1936<\/p>\n

3<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mystic
\npoetry does not mean anything exactly or apparently; it means things
\nsuggestively and reconditely, \u2014 things that are not known and classified by the
\nintellect.<\/p>\n

What
\nyou are asking is to reduce what is behind to intel\u00adlectual terms, which is to
\nmake it something quite different from itself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nSUNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT MYSTIC POETRY \u2014 INSPIRATION AND
\nREVELATION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I find no difficulty in the last stanza of J\u2019s poem nor any in con\u00adnecting
\nit with the two former stanzas. It is a single feeling and subjective idea or
\nvision expressing itself in three facets. In the full night of the spirit there
\nis a luminosity from above in the very heart of the darkness \u2014 imaged by the
\nmoon and stars in the bo\u00adsom of the Night. (The night-sky with the moon
\n(spiritual light) and the stars is a well-known symbol and it is seen
\nfrequently by Sadhaks even when they do not know its meaning.) In that night of
\nthe spirit is the Dream to which or through which a path is found that in the
\nordinary light of waking day one forgets or misses. In the night of the spirit
\nare shadowy avenues of pain, but even in that shadow the Power of Beauty and
\nBeatitude sings secretly and unseen the strains of Paradise.
\nBut in the light of day the mystic heart of moonlight sorrowfully weeps,
\nsuppressed, for even though the nectar of it is there behind, it falters away
\nfrom this garish light because it is itself a subtle thing of dream, not of
\nconscious waking mind-nature. That is how I understand or<\/p>\n

 Page – 353<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

rather try
\nmentally to express it. But it is putting a very abstract sense into what
\nshould be kept vague in outline but vivid in feeling\u2014by mentalising one puts at
\nonce too much and too little in it.<\/p>\n

I do not remember the context of the passage you quote from The Future
\nPoetry,<\/i> but I suppose I meant to contrast the veiled utterance of what is
\nusually called mystic poetry with the lumi\u00adnous and assured clarity of the
\nfully expressed spiritual expe\u00adrience. I did not mean to contrast it with the
\nmental clarity which is aimed at usually by poetry in which the intelligence or
\nthinking mind is consulted at each step. The concreteness of intellectual
\nimaged description is one thing and spiritual concreteness is another.
\n"Two birds, companions, seated on one tree, but one\u00a0 <\/span>eats the fruit, the other eats not but watches
\nhis fellow"\u00b9\u2014 that has an illumining spiritual clarity and concreteness to
\none who has had the experience, but mentally and intellectually it might mean
\nanything or nothing. Poetry uttered with the spiri\u00adtual clarity may be compared
\nto sunlight, poetry uttered with the mystic veil to moonlight. But it was not
\nmy intention to deny beauty, power or value to the moonlight. Note that I have
\ndistin\u00adguished between two kinds of mysticism, one in which the rea\u00adlisation or
\nexperience is vague, though inspiringly vague, the other in which the experience
\nis revelatory and intimate, but the utter\u00adance it finds is veiled by the image,
\nnot thoroughly revealed by it. I do not know to which Tagore\u2019s recent poetry
\nbelongs, I have not read it. But the latter kind of poetry (where there is the
\ninti\u00admate experience) can be of great power and value \u2014 witness Blake.
\nRevelation is greater than inspiration \u2014 it brings the direct knowledge and
\nseeing; inspiration gives the expression, but the two are not always equal.
\nThere is even an inspiration without revelation, when one gets the word but the
\nthing remains behind the veil; the transcribing consciousness expresses some\u00adthing
\nwith power, like a medium, of which it has not itself the direct sight or the
\nliving possession. It is better to get the sight of the thing itself than
\nmerely express it by an inspiration which comes from behind the veil, but this
\nkind of poetry too has often a great light and power in it. The highest
\ninspiration brings the<\/p>\n

\u00b9 Mundaka
\nUpanishad,<\/i> Chap.<\/font> III. I. 1<\/font>.<\/font><\/b><\/span> <\/b><\/p>\n

Page – 354<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

intrinsic word,
\nthe spiritual Mantra; but even where the inspi\u00adration is less than that, has a
\ncertain vagueness or fluidity of outline, you cannot say of such mystic poetry
\nthat it has no inspiration, not the inspired word at all. Where there is no
\ninspiration there can be no poetry.<\/p>\n

10.6.1936<\/p>\n

\n

SYMBOLIC AND MYSTIC POETRY<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I suppose the poem you sent me might be described as the poetic rendering
\nof a symbolic vision \u2014 it is not a mystic poem. A poem no doubt can be symbolic
\nand mystic at the same time. For instance N\u2019s English poem of the vision of the
\nLion-flame and the Deer-flame, beauty and power, was symbolic and mystic at
\nonce. It is when the thing seen is spiritually lived and has an indepen\u00addent
\nvivid reality of its own which exceeds any conceptual signi\u00adficance it may have
\non the surface that it is mystic. Symbols may be of various kinds; there are
\nthose that are concealing images capable of intellectual interpretation but
\nstill different from either symbolic or allegorical figures \u2014 and there are
\nthose that have a more intimate life of their own and are not conceptual so
\nmuch as occultly vital in their significance; there are still others that need
\na psychic or spiritual or at least an inner and intuitive sight to identify
\noneself fully with their meaning. In a poem which uses conceptual symbols the
\nmind is more active and the reader wants to know what it means to the mind; but
\nas minds differ, the poet may attach one meaning to it and the reader may find
\nanother, if the image used is at all an enigmatic one, not mentally clear and
\nprecise. In the more deeply symbolist \u2014 still more in the mystic \u2014 poem the
\nmind is submerged in the vividness of the reality and any mental explanation
\nfalls far short of what is felt and lived in the deeper vital or psychic
\nresponse. This is what Housman in his book tries to explain with regard to
\nBlake\u2019s poetry, though he seems to me to miss altogether the real nature of the
\nresponse. It is not the mere sensation to which what he calls pure poetry
\nappeals but to a deeper inner life or life-soul within us which has profounder
\ndepths than the thinking mind and responds with a certain kind of
\nsoul-excitement or ecstasy<\/p>\n

  Page – 355<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014<\/i> the
\nphysical vibrations on which he lays stress are merely a very outward result of
\nthis sudden stir within the occult folds of the being. Mystic poetry can strike
\nstill deeper \u2014 it can stir the inmost and subtlest recesses of the life-soul
\nand the secret inner mind at the same time; it can even, if it is of the right
\nkind, go beyond these also to the pure inmost psychic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA COMPARISON BETWEEN ARJAVA’S\u00a0
\n<\/span>"TOTALITARIAN"\u00b9 AND WALTER DE LA MARE\u2019S\u00a0 <\/span>"LISTENERS"<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

De
\nla Mare’s poem has a delicate beauty throughout and a sort of daintily fanciful
\nsuggestion of the occult world. I do not know if there is anything more. The
\nweakness of it is that it reads like a thing imagined\u2014the images and details
\nare those that might be written of a haunted house on earth which has got
\npossessed by some occult presences. Arjava must no doubt have taken his
\nstarting-point from a reminiscence of this poem, but there is nothing else in
\ncommon with De la Mare \u2014 his poem is an extraordinarily energetic and powerful
\nvision of an occult world and every phrase is intimately evocative of the
\nbeyond as a thing vividly seen and strongly lived \u2014 it is not on earth, this
\ncourtyard and this crescent moon, we are at once in an unearthly world and in a
\nplace somewhere in the soul of man and all the details, sparing, with a
\npowerful economy of phrase and image and bre\u00advity of movement but revelatory in
\neach touch as opposed to the dim moonlight suggestions supported by a profusion
\nof detail and long elaborating development in De la Mare \u2014 of course that has
\nits value also \u2014 make us entirely feel ourselves there. I therefore maintain my
\ndescription "original" not only for the latter part of the poem but
\nfor the opening also. It is not an echo, it is an independent creation. Indeed
\nthe difference of the ; two poems comes out most strongly in these very (first
\neight) lines.<\/p>\n

…the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,<\/span><\/p>\n

That goes down
\nto the empty hall,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 See Arjava (J.
\nA. Chadwick), Poems,<\/i> John Watkins, London,
\n1941, p. 215;<\/font> <\/p>\n

Page – 356<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

…the dark
\nturf,<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2019Neath the
\nstarred and leafy sky<\/i><\/p>\n

are a description of things on earth made occult only by the presence of
\nthe phantom listeners. But<\/p>\n

…. the
\nempty eerie courtyard<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>With
\nno name<\/i><\/p>\n

or<\/p>\n

…. a crescent moon swung
\nwanly,<\/i><\/p>\n

White as curd<\/i><\/p>\n

are
\nnot earthly, they belong to a terrible elsewhere, while the latter part of the
\npoem carries the elsewhere into a province of the soul. This is the distinction
\nand makes the perfect successfulness of Arjava\u2019s poem.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

15.10.1936<\/p>\n

A COMPARISON BETWEEN A\u2019S "PHARPHAR" AND WALTER DE LA MARE\u2019S "ARABIA"<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

               
\nI<\/b>t is indeed charming \u2014 De la Mare seems to have an unfailing beauty of
\nlanguage and rhythm and an inspired loveliness of fancy that is captivating. But
\nstill it is fancy, the mind playing with its delicate imaginations. A hint of
\nsomething deeper tries to get through sometimes, but it does not go beyond a
\nhint. That is the difference between his poem and the one it inspired from you.
\nThere is some kinship though no sameness in the rhythm and the tone of delicate
\nremoteness it brings with it. But in your poem that something deeper is not
\nhinted, it is caught \u2014throughout\u2014in all the expressions, but especially in such
\nlines as<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen the magic ethers of evening<\/i><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWash one the various day<\/i><\/p>\n

Page – 357<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nThe beautiful body of Pharphar<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/span>Or<\/span> its soul of secret sound<\/i><\/p>\n

Or<\/p>\n


\nThis river of infinite distance,<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Pharphar.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These
\nexpressions give a sort of body to the occult without taking from it its
\nstrangeness and do not leave it in mist or in shadowy image or luminous
\nsilhouette. That is what a fully successful spiritual or occult poetry has to
\ndo, to make the occult and the spiritual real to the vision of the
\nconsciousness, the feeling. The occult is most often materialised as by Scott
\nand Shakespeare or else pictured in mists, the spiritual mentalised, as in many
\nattempts at spiritual poetry \u2014 a reflection in the mind is not enough. For
\nsuccess in the former, Arjava’s "Totalitarian" with the stark occult reality of
\nits vision is a good example; for the latter there are lines both in his poems
\nand yours that I could instance, but I cannot recall them accurately just now \u2014
\nbut have you not somewhere a line<\/p>\n

The mute unshadowed spaces of her
\nmind?<\/span><\/p>\n

That
\nwould be an instance of the concrete convincing reality of which I am speaking \u2014
\na spiritual state not hinted at or abstractly put as the metaphysical poets most
\noften do it but presented with a tangible accuracy which one who has lived in
\nthe silent wideness of his spiritualised mind can at once recognise as the
\nembodiment in word of his experience.<\/p>\n

I do
\nnot mean for a moment to deny the value of the  <\/span><\/i>exquisite texture of dream in <\/b>De<\/span> la Mare’s representation, but still
\nthis          <\/span>
\ncompleter embodiment achieves more.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t16.10.1936<\/p>\n

\n

\nTRUTH BEHIND POETIC IMAGES<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n


\n <\/span>There are truths and there are transcriptions of truths; the  <\/p>\n

Page – 358<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\ntranscriptions may be accurate or may be free and imaginative. The truth behind
\na poetic creation is there on some plane or other \u2014 supra-physical generally \u2014
\nand from there the sugges\u00adtion of the image too originally comes; even the whole
\ntranscrip\u00adtion itself can be contributed from there, but ordinarily it is the
\nmind’s faculty of imagination which gives it form and body. Poetic imagination
\nis very usually satisfied with beauty of idea and image only and the aesthetic
\npleasure of it, but there is some\u00adthing behind it which supplies the Truth in
\nits images, and to get the transcription also direct from that something or
\nsomewhere behind should be the aim of mystic or spiritual poetry. When Shelley
\nmade the spirits of Nature speak, he was using his imagi\u00adnation, but there was
\nsomething behind in him which felt and knew and believed in the truth of the
\nthing he was expressing \u2014 he felt that there were forms more real than living
\nman behind the veil. But his method of presentation was intellectual and
\nima\u00adginative, so one misses the full life in these impalpable figures. To get a
\nmore intimate and spiritually concrete presentation should be the aim of the
\nmystic poet.<\/p>\n

\nSymbolic poems always come from a mystic region; the alle\u00adgorical may come from
\nthe intellect, but often the allegory itself rests on a concealed symbol and
\nthen there is a mystic element.<\/p>\n

\n\t\tNovember, 1933<\/p>\n

\n

\nPOETIC CONCEIT<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

When
\nan image comes out of the mind not properly transmuted in the inner vision or
\ndelivered by the alchemy of language, it betrays itself as coin of the fancy or
\nthe contriving intellect and is then called a conceit.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nMYSTIC SYMBOLS<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span>1<\/b><\/p>\n

If you expect matter of fact
\nverisimilitude from X or a scientific  <\/p>\n

Page – 359<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\nornithologically accurate swan, you are knocking at the wrong door. But I don’t
\nsee exactly the point of your objection. The lake in this poem is not a lake but
\na symbol; the swan is not a swan but a symbol. You can’t expect the lake merely
\nto ripple and do nothing else. It is as much a symbol as the Bird of Fire or the
\nBird of the Vedic poet who faced the guardians of the Soma and brought the Soma
\nto Indra (or was it to a Rishi? I have forgotten) \u2014 perhaps carrying a pot or
\nseveral pots in his claws and beak!! for I don’t know how else he could have
\ndone it. How is he to use the symbol if you don’t make allowances for a
\nmiraculous Swan ? If the Swan does nothing but what an ordinary swan does, it
\nceases to be a symbol and becomes only a metaphor. The animals of these symbols
\nbelong not to earth but to Wonderland.<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nobjection that stars do not get nata<\/i> [bent] stands only if the poem
\ndescribes objective phenomena or aims at using purely objective images. But if
\nthe vision behind the poem is subjec\u00adtive, the objection holds no longer. The
\nmystic subjective vision admits a consciousness in physical things and gives
\nthem a subtle physical life which is not that of the material existence. If a
\ncon\u00adsciousness is felt in the stars and if that consciousness expresses itself
\nin subtle physical images to the vision of the poet, there can be no
\nimprobability of a star being nata \u2014<\/i> such expressions attri\u00adbute a
\nmystical life to the stars and can appropriately express this in mystic images.
\nI agree with you about the fineness of the line.<\/p>\n

27.
\n5.1936<\/p>\n

\n

SYMBOLISM<\/font> AND ALLEGORY<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There
\nis a considerable difference between symbolism and allegory; they are not at all
\nthe same thing. Allegory comes in  <\/p>\n

\nPage – 360<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

when
\na quality or other abstract thing is personalised and the allegory proper should
\nbe something carefully stylised and deli\u00adberately sterilised of the full aspect
\nof embodied life so that the essential meaning or idea may come out with
\nsufficient precision and force of clarity. One can find this method in the old
\nmystery plays and it is a kind of art that has its value. Allegory is an
\nintel\u00adlectual form; one is not expected to believe in the personalisation of the
\nabstract quality, it is only an artistic device. When in an allegory as in
\nSpenser’s faerie Queene<\/i> the personalisation, the embodiment takes first
\nplace and absorbs the major part of the mind’s interest, the true style and
\nprinciple of this art have been abandoned. The allegorical purpose here becomes
\na submerged strain and is really of secondary importance, our search for it a
\nby-play of the mind; we read for the beauty and interest of the figures and
\nmovements presented to us, not for this submerged significance. An allegory must
\nbe intellectually precise and clear in its representative figures as well as in
\ntheir basis, however much adorned with imagery and personal expression;
\notherwise it misses its purpose. A symbol expresses on the contrary not the play
\nof abstract things or ideas put into imaged form, but a living truth or inward
\nvision or experience of things, so inward, so subtle, so little belonging to the
\ndomain of intellectual abstraction and precision that it cannot be brought out
\nexcept through sym\u00adbolic images \u2014 the more these images have a living truth of
\ntheir own which corresponds intimately to the living truth they symbolise,
\nsuggests the very vibration of the experience itself, the greater becomes the
\nart of the symbolic expression. When the symbol is a representative sign or
\nfigure and nothing more, then the symbolic approaches nearer to an intellectual
\nmethod, though even then it is not the same thing as allegory. In mystic poetry
\nthe symbol ought to be as much as possible the natural body of the inner truth
\nor vision, itself an intimate part of the experience.<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lord, what an
\nincorrigible mentaliser and allegorist you are! If the bird were either
\nconsciousness or the psychic or light, it<\/p>\n

Page – 361<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

would
\nbe an allegory and all the mystic beauty would be gone. A living symbol and a
\nmental allegorical symbol are not the same thing. You can’t put a label on the
\nBird of Marvel any more than on the Bird of Fire or any other of the fauna or
\nflora or popula\u00adtion of the mystic kingdoms. They can be described, but to label
\nthem destroys their life and makes them only stuffed specimens in an allegorical
\nmuseum. Mystic symbols are living things, not abstractions. Why insist on
\nkilling them? J has described the Bird and told you all that is necessary about
\nit, the rest you have to feel and live inside, not dissect and put the fragments
\ninto neatly arranged drawers8. <\/p>\n

8. 1936<\/p>\n


\nPSYCHIC AND ESOTERIC
\nPOETRY<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n <\/span><\/p>\n

These
\npoems are quite new in manner \u2014 simple and precise and penetrating. What you
\ndescribe is the psychic fire, agni pāvaka, <\/i>which burns in the deeper
\nheart and from there is lighted in the mind, the vital and the physical body. In
\nthe mind Agni creates a light of intuitive perception and discrimination which
\nsees at once what is the true vision or idea and the wrong vision or idea, the
\ntrue feeling and the wrong feeling, the true movement and the wrong movement. In
\nthe vital it is kindled as a fire of right emo\u00adtion and a kind of intuitive
\nfeeling, a sort of tact which makes for the right impulse, the right action, the
\nright sense of things and reaction to things. In the body it initiates a similar
\nbut still more automatic correct response to the things of physical life,
\nsensa\u00adtion, body experience. Usually it is the psychic light in the mind that is
\nfirst lit of the three, but not always \u2014 for sometimes it is the psycho-vital
\nflame that takes precedence.<\/p>\n

In ordinary life also
\nthere is no doubt an action of the psy\u00adchic \u2014 without it man would be only a
\nthinking and planning animal. But its action there is very much veiled, needing
\nalways the mental or vital to express it, usually mixed and not dominant, not
\nunerring therefore; it does often the right thing in the wrong way, is moved by
\nthe right feeling but errs as to the application,
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage – 362<\/font><\/p>\n


\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\nperson, place, circumstance. The psychic, except in a few extraordinary natures,
\ndoes not get its full chance in the outer consciousness; it needs some kind of
\nYoga or Sadhana to come by its own and it is as it emerges more and more in
\nfront that it gets clear of the mixture. That is to say, its presence becomes
\ndirectly felt, not only behind and supporting, but filling the frontal
\nconsciousness and no longer dependent or dominated by its instruments \u2014 mind,
\nvital and body, but dominating them and moulding them into luminosity and
\nteaching them their true action.<\/p>\n

It
\nis not easy to say whether the poems are esoteric; for these words "esoteric"
\nand "exoteric" are rather ill-defined in their sig\u00adnificance. One understands
\nthe distinction between exoteric and esoteric religion \u2014 that is to say, on one
\nside, creed, dogma, mental faith, religious worship and ceremony, religious and
\nmoral practice and discipline, on the other an inner seeking piercing beyond the
\ncreed and dogma and ceremony or finding their hidden meaning, living deeply
\nwithin in spiritual and mystic experience. But how shall we define esoteric
\npoetry? Perhaps what deals in an occult way with the occult may, be called
\nesoteric \u2014 e.g., the Bird of Fire,* Trance *<\/i>
\netc. The Two Moons*<\/i> is, it is obvious, desperately esoteric. But I don’t
\nknow whether an intimate spiritual experience simply and limpidly told without
\nveil or recondite image can be called esoteric \u2014 for the word usually brings the
\nsense of something kept back from the ordinary eye, hidden, occult. Is
\nNirvana*<\/i>
\nfor instance an esoteric poem ? There is no veil or symbol there \u2014 it tries to
\nstate the experience as precisely and overtly as possible. The expe\u00adrience of
\nthe psychic fire and psychic discrimination is an intimate spiritual experience,
\nbut it is direct and simple like all psychic things. The poem which expresses it
\nmay easily be something deeply inward, esoteric in that sense, but simple,
\nunveiled and clear, not esoteric in the more usual sense. I rather think,
\nhow\u00adever, the term "esoteric poem" is a misnomer and some other phraseology
\nwould be more accurate.<\/p>\n

30. 4.
\n1935<\/p>\n

\n

\n*Poems by Sri Aurobindo. See Collected Poems,<\/i> Centenary
\nEdition, 1972<\/font>  <\/p>\n

\nPage – 363<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n
\n <\/font>PSYCHIC AND OVERHEAD INSPIRATION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 1<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere is too the psychic source of inspiration which can give a beautiful
\nspiritual poetry. The psychic has two aspects \u2014 there is the soul principle
\nitself which contains all soul possibilities and there is the psychic
\npersonality which represents whatever soul-power is developed from life to life
\nor put forward for action in our present life-formation. The psychic being
\nusually expresses itself through its instruments, mental, vital and physical; it
\ntries to put as much of its own stamp on them as possible. But it can seldom put
\non them the full psychic stamp \u2014 unless it comes fully out from its rather
\nsecluded and overshadowed position and takes into its hands the direct
\ngovernment of the nature. It can then receive and express all spiritual
\nrealisations in its own way and manner. For the turn of the psychic is different
\nfrom that of the overhead planes :<\/sup>\u2014 it has less of greatness, power,
\nwideness, more of a smaller sweetness, delicate beauty; there is an intense
\nbeauty of emotion, a fine subtlety of true perception, an intimate language. The
\nexpression "sweetness and light" can very well be applied to the psychic as the
\nkernel of its nature. The spiritual plane, when it takes up these things, gives
\nthem a wider utterance, a greater splendour of light, a stronger sweet\u00adness, a
\nbreath of powerful audacity, strength and space<\/p>\n

1936<\/p>\n

\n2<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

To
\nget the psychic being to emerge is not easy, though it is a very necessary thing
\nfor sādhanā<\/i> and when it does it is not certain that it will switch on to
\nthe above-head planes at once. But obviously anyone who could psychicise his
\npoetry would get a unique place among the poets.<\/p>\n

The direct psychic
\ntouch is not frequent in poetry. It breaks in sometimes \u2014 more often there is
\nonly a tinge here and there<\/p>\n

19. 10.
\n1936<\/p>\n

Page – 364<\/font><\/p>\n


\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

\n3<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I
\ndon’t suppose the emergence of the psychic would interfere at all with the
\ninspiration from above. It would be more likely to help it by making the
\nconnection with these planes more direct and conscious.<\/p>\n

20. 10.
\n1936<\/p>\n


\nINSPIRATION FROM THE
\nILLUMINED MIND AND THE PSYCHIC<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Your question \u2014<\/p>\n

"What
\ndistinguishes, in manner and quality, a pure inspira\u00adtion from the illumined
\nmind from that which has the psychic for its origin?" \u2014reads like a poser in an
\nexamination paper. Even if I could give a satisfactory definition, Euclideanly
\nrigid, I don’t know that it would be of much use or would really help you to
\ndistinguish between the two kinds: these things have to be felt and perceived by
\nexperience. I would prefer to give examples. I suppose it would not be easy to
\nfind a more perfect example of psychic inspiration in English literature than
\nShelley’s well-known lines,<\/p>\n

I can give not what men call love;<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>But wilt thou accept not<\/i><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>The worship the heart lifts above<\/i><\/p>\n

And the Heavens reject not, \u2014<\/i><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>The desire of the moth for the star,<\/i><\/p>\n

Of the night for the morrow,
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

\nThe devotion to something afar<\/i><\/p>\n


\nFrom the sphere of our sorrow ?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014you
\nwill find there the true rhythm, expression and substance of poetry full of the
\npsychic influence. For full examples of the poetry which comes from the
\nillumined mind purely and simply and that in which the psychic and the spiritual
\nillumination meet together, one has to go to poetry that tries to express a
\nspiritual experience. You have yourself written things which can illustrate<\/p>\n

Page – 365<\/font><\/p>\n


\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

the difference. The
\nlines<\/p>\n

The longing of ecstatic tears<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/span>From infinite to infinite<\/i><\/p>\n

will
\ndo very well as an instance of the pure illumination, for here what would
\notherwise be a description of a spiritual heart- experience, psychic therefore
\nin its origin, is lifted up to a quite different spiritual level and expressed
\nwith the vision and language sufficiently characteristic of a spiritual-mental
\nillumination. In another passage there is this illumination but it is captured
\nand dominated by the inner heart and by the psychic thrill, a certain utterance
\nof the yearning and push of psychic love for the Divine incarnate.<\/p>\n

If
\nThou desirest my weak self to outgrow<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/span>Its mortal longings, lean down from
\nabove,<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/span>Temper the unborn Light no thought can
\ntrace,<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/span>Suffuse my mood with a familiar glow;   <\/span>
\n<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/span>For ”tis with mouth of clay I
\nsupplicate:<\/i><\/p>\n

Speak to me heart to heart words
\nintimate,<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>And
\nall Thy formless glory turn to love<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>And
\nmould Thy love into a human face.<\/i><\/p>\n

July.
\n1931<\/p>\n

\n

\nOVERHEAD POETRY<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What
\nsuper-excellence? as poetry ? When I say that a line comes from a higher or
\noverhead plane or has the Overmind touch I do not mean that it is superior in
\npure poetic excellence to others from lower planes \u2014 that A’s lines outshine
\nShakespeare or Homer for instance. I simply mean that it has some vision, light,
\netc. from up there and the character of its expression and rhythm are from
\nthere. You do not appreciate probably because you catch only the surface mental
\nmeaning. The line\u00b9 is very<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\u00b9 Flickering no longer with
\nthe Cry of clay,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n Page – 366<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

fine
\nfrom the technical point of view, the distribution of consonantal and vowel
\nsounds being perfect. That, however,. Is possible on any level of inspiration.
\nThese are technical elements,. The Overmind touch does not consist in that but
\nin the undertones or overtones of the rhythmic cry and a language which carries
\nin it a great depth or height or width of spiritual vision, feeling or
\nexperience. But all that has to be felt, it is not analysable. If I say that the
\nsecond line\u00b9 is a magnificent expres\u00adsion of an inner reality most intimate and
\npowerful and the first line, with its conception of the fire once "flickering"
\nwith the "cry" of clay but now no longer, is admirably revelatory \u2022\u2014 you would
\nprobably reply that it does not convey anything of the kind to you. That is why
\nI do not usually speak of these things in themselves or in their relation to
\npoetry\u2014only with A who is trying to get his inspiration into touch with these
\nplanes. Either one must have the experience \u2014 e.g., here one must have lived in
\nor glimpsed the mystic mind, felt its fire, been aware of the dis\u00adtances that
\nhaunt it, heard the cry of clay mixing with it and the consequent unsteady
\nflickering of its flames and the release into the straight upward burning and so
\nknown that this is not mere romantic rhetoric, not mere images or metaphors
\nexpressing something imaginative but unreal (that is how many would take it
\nperhaps) but facts and realities of the self, actual and concrete, or else there
\nmust be a conspiracy between the solar plexus and the thousand-Retailed lotus
\nwhich makes one feel, if not know, the suggestion of these things through the
\nwords and rhythm. As for technique, there is a technique of this higher poetry
\nbut it is not analysable and teachable. If, for instance, A had written "No
\nlonger flickering with the cry of clay", it would no longer have been the same
\nthing though the exact mental meaning would be just as before \u2014 for the
\novertone, the rhythm would have been lost in the ordinary staccato clipped
\nmovement and with the overtone the rhythmic significance. It would not have
\ngiven the suggestion of space and wideness full with the cry and the flicker,
\nthe intense impact of that cry and the agitation of the fire which is heard
\nthrough the line as it is. But to realise that, one must have the inner sight
\nand inner ear for these things; one<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9 The distance-haunted fire
\nof mystic mind<\/font> <\/font> <\/p>\n

Page – 367<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

must
\nbe able to hear the sound-meaning, feel the sound-spaces with their vibrations.
\nAgain, if he had written "Quivering no longer with the touch on clay", it would
\nhave been a good line, but meant much less and something quite different to the
\ninner experience, though to the mind it would have been only the same thing
\nexpressed in a different image \u2014 not so to the solar plexus and the thousand-petalled
\nlotus. In this technique it must be the right word and no other, in the right
\nplace and in no other, the right sounds and no others, in a design of sound that
\ncannot be changed even a little. You may say that it must be so in all poetry;
\nbut in ordinary poetry the mind can play about, chop and change, use one image
\nor another, put this word here or that word there \u2014 if the sense is much the
\nsame and has a poetical value, the mind does not feel that all is lost unless it
\nis very sensitive and much influenced by the solar plexus. In the overhead
\npoetry these things are quite imperative, it is all or nothing \u2014 or at least all
\nor a fall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOVERMIND RHYTHM AND INSPIRATION<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/i><\/p>\n

In the lines you quote from Wordsworth \u2014<\/p>\n

The cataracts blow their trumpets
\nfrom the steep;<\/i><\/p>\n

No more shall grief of mine the season
\nwrong;<\/i><\/p>\n

I hear the Echoes through the
\nmountains throng,<\/i><\/p>\n

The Winds come to me from the fields
\nof sleep,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/i>
\nthe Overmind movement is not there in the first three lines; in the last line
\nthere is something of the touch, not direct but through some high intuitive
\nconsciousness and, because it is not direct, the fully characteristic rhythm is
\nabsent or defective. The poetic value or perfection of a line, passage or poem
\ndoes not depend on the plane from which it comes; it depends on the purity and
\nauthenticity and power with which it transcribes an intense vision and
\ninspiration from whatever source. Shakespeare is a poet of the vital
\ninspiration, Homer of the subtle physical, but there are no greater poets in any
\nliterature. No doubt, if one <\/p>\n

Page – 368<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\ncould get a continuous inspiration from the Overmind, that would mean a greater,
\nsustained height of perfection and spiri\u00adtual quality in poetry than has yet
\nbeen achieved; but it is only in short passages and lines that even a touch of
\nit is attainable. One gets nearer the Overmind rhythm and inspiration in another
\nline of Wordsworth \u2014 <\/p>\n


\n…a mind… <\/i><\/p>\n


\nVoyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone<\/i><\/p>\n

or a line like
\nMilton’s<\/p>\n

Those thoughts that wander through
\neternity.<\/i><\/p>\n

one
\nhas the sense here of a rhythm which does not begin or end with the line, but
\nhas for ever been sounding in the eternal planes and began even in Time ages ago
\nand which returns into the infinite to go sounding on for ages after. In fact,
\nthe word-rhythm is only part of what we hear; it is a support for the rhythm we
\nlisten to behind in "the Ear of the ear", śrotrasya śrotrarn,<\/i> To a
\ncertain extent, that is what all great poetry at its highest tries to have, but
\nit is only the Overmind rhythm to which it is altogether native and in which it
\nis not only behind the word-rhythm but gets into the word-movement itself and
\nfinds a kind of fully supporting body there.<\/p>\n

10. 7.
\n1031<\/p>\n

P.S.
\nLines from the higher intuitive mind-consciousness, as well as those from the
\nOvermind, can have a mantric character \u2014 the rhythm too may have a certain
\nkinship with mantric rhythm, but it may not be the thing itself, only the
\nnearest step towards it<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE MANTRA<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

The
\nmantra<\/i> as I have tried to describe it in The Future Poetry <\/i>is a
\nword of power and light that comes from the Overmind inspi\u00adration or from some
\nvery high plane of Intuition. Its characteristics
\n <\/p>\n

Page – 369<\/font><\/p>\n


\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

are a
\nlanguage that conveys infinitely more than the mere surface sense of the words
\nseems to indicate, a rhythm that means even more than the language and is born
\nout of the In\u00adfinite and disappears into it, and the power to convey not merely
\nthe mental, vital or physical contents or indications or values of the thing
\nuttered, but its significance and figure in some funda\u00admental and original
\nconsciousness which is behind all these and greater. The passages you mention
\nfrom the Upanishad and the Gita have certainly the Overmind accent. But
\nordinarily the Overmind inspiration does not come out pure in human poetry \u2014 it
\nhas to come down to an inferior consciousness and touch it or else to lift it by
\na seizure and surprise from above into some infinite largeness. There is always
\na mixture of the two elements, not an absolute transformation though the higher
\nmay some\u00adtimes dominate. You must remember that the Overmind is a superhuman
\nconsciousness and to be able to write always or purely from an Overmind
\ninspiration would mean the elevation of at least a part of the nature beyond the
\nhuman level.<\/p>\n

But
\nhow do you expect a supramental inspiration to come down here when the Overmind
\nitself is so rarely within human reach ? That is always the error of the
\nimpatient aspirant, to think he can get the Supermind without going through the
\nintervening stages or to imagine that he has got it when in fact he has only got
\nsomething from the illumined or intuitive or at the highest some kind of mixed
\nOvermind consciousness.<\/p>\n

22. 6.
\n1931<\/p>\n

\n

\nUSE OF "HIGH LIGHT" WORDS IN SPIRITUAL POETRY <\/font>
\n<\/b> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nA.E.’s remarks about "immensity", etc. are very interesting to me; for these are
\nthe very words, with others like them, that are constantly recurring at short
\nintervals in my poetry when I express not spiritual thought but spiritual
\nexperience. I knew per\u00adfectly well that this recurrence would be objected to as
\nbad tech\u00adnique or an inadmissible technique; but this seems to me a reasoning
\nfrom the conventions of a past order which cannot apply to a new poetry dealing
\nwith spiritual things. A new art <\/p>\n

Page – 370<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

of
\nwords written from a new consciousness demands a new tech\u00adnique. A.E. himself
\nadmits that this rule makes a great difficulty because these "high light" words
\nare few in the English language. His solution may do well enough where the
\nrealisa\u00adtions which they represent are mental realisations or intuitions
\noccurring on the summits of the consciousness, rare "high lights" over the low
\ntones of the ordinary natural or occult experience (ordinary, of course, to the
\npoet, not to the average man); there his solution would not violate the truth of
\nthe vision, would not misrepresent the balance or harmony of its actual tones.
\nBut what of one who lives in an atmosphere full of these high lights \u2014<\/i> in
\na consciousness in which the finite, not only the occult but even the earthly
\nfinite, is bathed in the sense of the eternal, the illimitable infinite, the
\nimmensities or intimacies of the timeless ? To follow A.E.’s rule might well
\nmean to falsify this atmosphere, to substitute a merely aesthetic fabrication
\nfor a true seeing and experience. Truth first \u2014 a technique expressive of the
\ntruth in the forms of beauty has to be found, if it does not exist. It is no use
\narguing from the spiritual inadequacy of the English langu\u00adage; the inadequacy
\ndoes not exist and, even if it did, the language- will have to be made adequate.
\nIt has been plastic enough in the past to succeed in expressing all that it was
\nasked to express, however new; it must now be urged to a farther new progress.
\nIn fact, the power is there and has only to be brought out more fully to serve
\nthe full occult, mystic, spiritual purpose.<\/p>\n

5. 2.
\n1932<\/p>\n

\n

USE OF UNDIGNIFIED WORDS IN POETRY<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I
\ndispute the legitimacy of the comment. It is based on a conven\u00adtional objection
\nto undignified and therefore presumably un-poetic words and images \u2014 an
\nobjection which has value only when the effect is uncouth or trivial, but cannot
\nbe accepted otherwise as a valid rule. Obviously, it might be difficult to bring
\nin "bobbing" in an epic or other "high" style, although I suppose <\/p>\n

Milton could have managed it and one remembers
\nthe famous <\/p>\n

\nPage – 371<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\ncontroversy about Hugo’s Mouchoir.<\/span><\/i> But in poetry of a mystic (occult or spiritual) kind
\nthis does not count. The aim is to bring up a vivid suggestion of the thing seen
\nand some significance of the form, movement, etc. through which one can get at
\nthe life behind and its meaning; a familiar adjective here can serve its purpose
\nvery well as a touch in the picture and there are occasions when no other could
\nbe as true and living or give so well the precise movement needed.<\/p>\n

\nIt is the same with the metre \u2014 an identical principle applies, a natural
\nkinship between the subject or substance of the poem and its soul-movement. For
\ninstance, a certain lightness, a suggestion of faery dance or faery motion may
\nbe needed as 0ne element and this would be lost by the choice of a heavier, more
\ndignified rhythm. After all, subject to a proper handling, that is the first
\nimportant desideratum, an essential harmony between the metrical rhythm and the
\nthing it has to express.<\/p>\n

\n5. 2. 1932<\/p>\n

\n

\nINDEPENDENT
\nGREATNESS OF OVERHEAD LINES IN POETRY\u2014<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>GREATNESS AND BEAUTY
\nIN POETRY<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

       
\nT<\/b>he context of Virgil’s line\u00b9 has nothing to do with and cannot detract
\nfrom its greatness and its overhead character. If we limit its meaning so as to
\nunify it with what goes before, if we want Virgil to say in it only, "Oh
\nyes, even in Carthage, so distant a place, these foreigners too can sympathise
\nand weep over what has happened in Troy and get touched by human misfortune,\u201d
\nthen the line will lose all its value and we would only have to admire the
\nstrong turn and recherch\u00e9 <\/i>suggestiveness<\/span>
\nof its expression. Virgil certainly did not mean it like that; he starts indeed
\nby stressing the generality of the fame of Troy and the interest taken
\neverywhere in her misfortunes but then he passes from the particularity of this
\nidea and suddenly rises from it to a feeling of the universality of mortal
\nsorrow and suffering and of the chord of human sympathy and participation which
\nresponds to it from all who share that mortality. He rises indeed much higher<\/p>\n

\u00b9Sunt lacrimae
\nrerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/font>Page – 372<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

than that and
\ngoes much deeper: he has felt a brooding cosmic sense of these things, gone
\ninto the depth of the soul which answers to them and drawn from it the inspired
\nand inevitable language and rhythm which came down to it from above to give
\nthis pathetic perception an immortal body. Lines like these sel\u00addom depend upon
\ntheir contexts, they rise from it as if a single Himalayan peak from a range of
\nlow hills or even from a flat plain. They have to be looked at by themselves,
\nvalued for their own sake, felt in their own independent greatness.
\nShakespeare’s lines upon sleep \u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wilt thou upon the high and
\ngiddy mast<\/i><\/p>\n

Seal up the
\nshipboy’s eyes, and rock his brains<\/i><\/p>\n

In cradle of .the rude imperious
\nsurge?\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

depend not at all upon the context which is indeed almost irrele\u00advant,
\nfor he branches off into a violent and resonant description of a storm at sea
\nwhich has its poetic quality, but that quality has something comparatively
\nquite inferior, so<\/i> that these few lines stand quite apart in their
\nunsurpassable magic and beauty. What has happened is that the sudden wings of a
\nsupreme inspi\u00adration from above have swooped down upon him and abruptly lifted
\nhim for a moment to highest heights, then as abruptly dropped him and left him
\nto his own normal resources. One can see him in the lines that follow straining
\nthese resources to try and get something equal to the greatness of this flight
\nbut failing except perhaps partly for one line only. <\/b>Or<\/span> take those lines in Hamlet\u2014<\/i><\/p>\n

Absent thee from felicity awhile <\/i><\/p>\n

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain.<\/i><\/p>\n

They arise out of a rapid series of violent melodramatic events but they
\nhave a quite different ring from all that surrounds them, however powerful that
\nmay be. They come from another plane, shine with another light: the close of
\nthe sentence \u2014 "to tell my story"\u2014which connects it with the thread
\nof the drama slips down in a quick incline to a lower inspiration. It is not a
\ndramatic interest <\/p>\n

Page – 373<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

we feel when we read these lines; their appeal does not arise from the
\nstory but would be the same anywhere and in any context. We have passed from
\nthe particular to the universal, to a voice from the cosmic self, to a poignant
\nreaction of the soul of man and not of Hamlet<\/u> alone to the pain and
\nsorrow of this world and its longing for some unknown felicity beyond. Virgil’s<\/p>\n

O passi graviora, dabit deus
\nhis quoque finem..<\/i><\/p>\n

. …forsan
\net haec olim meminisse juvabit<\/i><\/p>\n

is<\/span> only incidentally
\nconnected with the storm and wreck of the ships of Aeneas;<\/u> its appeal is
\nseparate and universal and for all time; it is again the human soul that is
\nspeaking moved by a greater and deeper inspiration of cosmic feeling with the
\nthought only as a mould into which the feeling is poured and the thinking mind
\nonly as a passive instrument. This applies to many or most of the distinctly
\noverhead lines we meet or at least to those which may be called overhead
\ntransmissions. Even the lines that are perfect and absolute, though not from
\nthe overhead, tend to stand out, if not away, from their surroundings. Long
\npassages of high inspiration there are or short poems in which the wing-beats
\nof some surpassing Power and Beauty gleam out amidst flockings of an equal or
\nalmost equal radiance of light. But still the absolutely absolute is rare: it
\nis not often that the highest peaks crowd together.<\/p>\n

As
\nto the translations of Virgil’s great line I may observe that the English
\ntranslation you quote\u00b9 repeats the "here, too" of the previous line
\nand so rivets his high close to its context, thus emphasising unduly the idea
\nof a local interest and maiming the universality. Virgil has put in no such
\nrivetting, he keeps a bare connection from which he immediately slips away: his
\nsingle incomparable line rises sheer and abrupt into the heights both in its
\nthought and in its form out of the sustained Virgilian elegance of what
\nprecedes it. The psychological movement by which this happens is not at all
\nmysterious; he speaks first of the local and particular, then in the
\npenultimate line passes to the general \u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9
\n"Here, too, virtue has its due reward; here, too, there are tears for
\nmisfortune and mortal sorrows touch the heart." \u2014 A. R. Fairclough.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Page – 374<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

"here
\ntoo as everywhere where there are human beings are re\u00adwards for
\nexcellence", and then passes to the universal, to the reaction of all
\nhumanity, to all that is human and mortal in a world of suffering. In your
\nprose translation\u00b9 also there are super\u00adfluities which limit and lower the
\nsignificance. Virgil does not say "tears for earthly things",
\n"earthly" is your addition; he says nothing about "mortal
\nfortunes" which makes the whole thing quite narrow. His single word
\n"rerum" and his single word "mortalia" admit in them all
\nthe sorrow and suffering of the world and all the affliction and misery that
\nbeset mortal creatures in this transient and unhappy world, anityam asukham
\nlokam imam. <\/i>The superfluous words bring in a particularising intellectual
\ninsis\u00adtence which impoverishes a great thought and a great utterance. Your
\nfirst hexametric version2<\/sup> is rather poor; the second3<\/sup> is
\nmuch better and the first half is very fine; the second half is good but it is
\nnot an absolute hit. I would like to alter it to<\/p>\n

Haunted
\nby tears is the world and our hearts by the<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>touch of things
\nmortal.<\/i><\/p>\n

But this version has a density of colour which is absent from the bare
\neconomy and direct force Virgil manages to combine with his subtle and unusual
\nturn of phrase. As for my own translation \u2014"the touch of tears in mortal
\nthings" \u2014 it is intended not as an accurate and scholastic prose rendering
\nbut as a poetic equi\u00advalent. I take it from a passage in Savitri<\/i> where
\nthe mother of Savitri is lamenting her child’s fate-and contrasting the unmoved
\nand unfeeling calm of the gods with human suffering and sym\u00adpathy. I quote from
\nmemory,<\/p>\n

We sorrow for a greatness that has passed <\/i><\/p>\n

And feel the touch of tears in mortal things.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Even a stranger’s anguish rends
\nmy heart,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>And this, O
\nNarad, is my well-loved child.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/font>
\n"Here too there is reward for honour, there are tears for earthly things and mortal
\nfortunes touch the heart."<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font>\u00b2<\/font><\/span><\/sup> Tears are in all things and
\ntouched is our heart by the fate of the mortals. <\/font><\/p>\n


\n <\/font>\u00b3<\/font><\/sup> Haunted by tears
\nis the world; on our heart is the touch of things mortal.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

Page – 375<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In
\nVirgil\u2019s line the two halves are not really two separate ideas and statements;
\nthey are one idea with two symmetrical limbs; the meaning and force of
\n"mortalia tangunt" derives wholly from the "lacrimae rerum"
\nand this, I think, ought to be brought out if we are to have an adequate poetic
\nrendering. Three capi\u00adtal words, "lacrimae", "mortalia",
\n"tangunt", carry in them in an intimate connection the whole burden
\nof the inner sense; the touch which falls upon the mind from mortal things is
\nthe touch of tears "lacrimae rerum". I consider therefore that the
\ntouch of tears is there quite directly enough, spiritually, if not
\nsyntactically, and that my translation is perfectly justifiable.<\/p>\n

As to the doubt
\nyou have expressed, I think there is some confusion still about the use of the
\nword "great" as distinct from the beautiful. In poetry greatness
\nmust, no doubt, be beautiful in the wider and deeper sense of beauty to be
\npoetry, but the beau\u00adtiful is not always great. First, let me deal with the
\nexamples you give, which do not seem to me to be always of an equal quality. For
\ninstance, the lines you quote from Squire\u00b9 do not strike me as deserving
\nsupreme praise. There is one line "on rocks forlorn and frore" which
\nis of a very high beauty, but the rest is lofty and eloquent poetry and
\nsuggestive of something deep but not more than that; above all, there is a
\ngeneral lack of the rhythm that goes home to the soul and keeps sounding there
\nex\u00adcept indeed in that one line and without such a rhythm there can\u00adnot be the
\nabsolute perfection; a certain kind of perfection there can be with a lesser
\nrhythmic appeal but I do not find it here, the pitch of sound is only that of
\nwhat may be described as the highly moved intellect. In the lines from Dryden\u00b2
\nthe second has indeed the true note but the first is only clever and forcible
\nwith that apposite, striking and energetic cleverness which abounds in the<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 And that
\naged Brahmapootra<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Who beyond the white Himalaya
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Passes many a lamissery<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>On
\nrocks forlorn and frore, <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>A block of gaunt grey stone walls
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>With rows of little barred windows<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Where shrivelled young monks in yellow silk
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Are hidden for evermore. \u2014 J. C. Squire<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00b2 In liquid burnings or in dry to
\ndwell <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Is<\/span>
\nall the sad variety of hell. \u2014 Dryden<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font>Page – 376<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

chief poets of that period and imposes their poetry on the
\nthink\u00ading mind but usually fails to reach deeper. Of course, there can be a
\ndivine or at least a deified cleverness, but that is when the intellect after
\nfinding something brilliant transmits it to some higher power for uplifting and
\ntransfiguration. It is because that is not always done by Pope and Dryden that
\nI once agreed with Arnold in regarding their work as a sort of half poetry; but
\nsince then my view and feeling have become more catholic and I would no longer
\napply that phrase, \u2014 Dryden especially has lines and passages which rise to a
\nvery high poetic peak, \u2014 but still there is something in this limitation, this
\npredominance of the ingenious intellect which makes us understand Arnold’s
\nstricture. The second quotation from Tennyson\u00b9 is eloquent and powerful, but
\nabsolute perfection seems to me an excessive praise for these lines, \u2014 at least
\nI meant much more by it than anything we find here. There is absolute
\nperfection of a kind, of sound and language at least, and a supreme technical
\nexcellence in his moan of doves and murmur of bees.\u00b2 As to your next compari\u00adson,
\nyou must not expect me to enter into a comparative valua\u00adtion of my own poetry\u00b3
\nwith that of Keats,<\/span>
\nI will only say that the "substance" of these lines of Keats is of the
\nhighest kind and the expression is not easily surpassable, and even as regards
\nthe plane of their origin it is above and not below the boundary of the
\noverhead lines. The other lines you quote have their own perfection; some have
\nthe touch from above while others, it might be said, touch the overhead from
\nbelow.<\/p>\n

But
\nwhat is the point ? I do not think I have ever said that all overhead poetry is
\nsuperior to all that comes from other sources.<\/p>\n

\u00b9 Well is it that
\nno child is born of thee;<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The children born of thee are sword and
\nfire,<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Red ruin and the breaking up of laws. \u2014
\nTennyson<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00b2 The moan of
\ndoves in immemorial elms,<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nAnd murmuring of innumerable
\nbees. \u2014 Tennyson<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00b3 Above the
\nreason’s brilliant slender curve,<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Released like radiant air dimming a moon,
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>White spaces of a vision without line
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nOr<\/span> limit… \u2014 Sri Aurobindo<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u2026solitary thinkings; such as dodge <\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
\n<\/font> <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nThen leave
\nthe naked brain. \u2014 Keats<\/font> <\/p>\n

Page – 377<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I<\/i> am
\nspeaking of greatness and said that greatness of substance does count and gives
\na general superiority; I was referring to work in the mass and not to separate
\nlines and passages. I said practically, that art in the sense of perfect
\nmastery of technique perfect expression in word and sound was not everything
\nand greatness and beauty of substance of the poetry entered into tt reckoning.
\nIt might be said of Shakespeare that he was not predominantly an artist but
\nrather a great creator, even though he has an art of his own, especially an art
\nof dramatic architecture and copious ornament; but his work is far from being
\nalways perfect. In Racine on the
\nother hand, there is an unfailing perfection; Racine
\nis the complete poetic artist. But if comparisons are to be made, Shakespeare’s
\nmust surely be pronounced to be the greater poetry, greater in the vastness of
\nits range, in its abundant creativeness, in its dramatic height and power, in
\nthe richness of his inspiration, in his world-view, in the peaks to which he
\nrises and the depths which he plumbs \u2014 even though he sinks to flatnesses which
\nRacine would have abhorred \u2014 and generally a glory of God’s making which is
\nmarvellous and unique. Racine has
\nhis heights and depths and widenesses, but nothing like this; he has not in him
\nthe poetic superman, he does not touch the superhuman level of creation. But
\nall this is mainly a matter of substance and also of height and greatness in
\nlanguage, not of impeccable beauty and perfection of diction and rhythm which
\nought to rank higher on the principle of art for art’s sake.<\/p>\n

That is one thing and for the sake of clarity it must be seen by itself
\nin separation from the other points I put forward. The comparison of passages
\neach perfectly beautiful in itself but different in their kind and source of
\ninspiration is a different matter. Here it is a question of the perfection of
\nthe poetry, not of its greatness. In the valuation of whole poems Shelley’s Skylark<\/i>
\nmay be described as a greater poem than his brief and exquisite lyric \u2014 "I
\ncan give not what men call love" \u2014 because of its greater range and power
\nand constant flow of unsurpassable music, but it is not more perfect; if we
\ntake separate lines and passages, the stanza "We look before and
\nafter" is not superior in perfection or absoluteness to that in the other
\npoem "The de\u00adsire of the moth for the star", even though it strikes a
\ndeeper note <\/p>\n

Page – 378<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

and may be said
\nto have a richer substance. The absolute is the absolute and the perfect
\nperfect, whatever difference there may be in the origin of inspiration; but
\nfrom the point of view of greatness one perfection may be said to be greater,
\nthough not more perfect than another. I would myself say that Words\u00adworth’s
\nline about Newton is greater,
\nthough not more perfect than many of those which you have put side by side with
\nit. And this I say on the same principle as the comparison between Shakespeare
\nand Racine, according to the principle of art for art’s sake Racine ought to be
\npronounced a poet superior to Shakes\u00adpeare because of his constant and impeccable
\nflawlessness of word and rhythm, but on the contrary Shakespeare is universally
\nconsidered greater, standing among the few who are supreme. Theocritus is
\nalways perfect in what he writes, but he cannot be ranked with Aeschylus and
\nSophocles. Why not, if art is the only thing? Obviously, because what the
\nothers write has an ampler range, a much more considerable height, breadth,
\ndepth, large\u00adness. There are some who say that great and long poems have no
\ntrue value and are mainly composed of padding and baggage and all that matters
\nare the few perfect lines and passages which shine like jewels among a mass of
\ninferior half-worked ore. In that case, the "great" poets ought to be
\ndebunked and the world’s poetic production valued only for a few lyrics, rare
\nsuperb pas\u00adsages and scattered lines that we can rescue from the laborious mass
\nproduction of the artificers of word, sound and language. <\/p>\n

I
\ncome now to the question of the Overmind and whether there is anything in it
\nsuperior or more perfectly perfect, more ab\u00adsolutely absolute than in the lower
\nplanes. If it is true that one can get the same absolute fully on any plane and
\nfrom any kind of ins\u00adpiration, whether in poetry or other expressions of the
\nOne, then it would seem to be quite useless and superfluous for any human being
\nto labour to rise above mind to Overmind or Supermind and try to bring them
\ndown upon earth; the idea of the transfor\u00admation would become absurd since it
\nwould be possible to have the "form" perfect and absolute anywhere
\nand by a purely earthly –\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>means, a purely
\nearthly force. I am reminded of X\u2019s logical ob\u00adjection to my idea of the descent
\nof the Divine into us or into the \u00a0 <\/span>world on the ground, as he put it, that
\n"the Divine is here, from <\/p>\n

Page – 379<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

where is He to
\ndescend ?" My answer is that obviously the Divine is here, although very
\nmuch concealed; but He is here in essence and He has not chosen to manifest all
\nHis powers or His full power in Matter, in Life, in Mind; He has not even made
\nthem fit by themselves for some future manifestation of all that, whereas on
\nhigher planes there is already that manifestation and by a descent from them
\nthe full manifestation can be brought here All the planes have their own power,
\nbeauty, some kind of perfection realised even among their imperfections; God is
\neverywhere in some power of Himself though not everywhere in His full power,
\nand even if His face does not appear, the rays and glories from it do fall upon
\nthings and beings through the veil and bring something of what we call perfect
\nand absolute. And yet perhaps there may be a more perfect perfection, not in
\nthe same kind but in a greater kind, a more utter revelation of the absolute.
\nAncient thought speaks of something that is highest beyond the highest, parātparam:<\/i>
\nthere is a supreme beyond what is for us or seems to us supreme. As Life brings
\nin something that is greater than Matter, as Mind brings in something that is
\ngreater than Life, so Overmind brings in something that greater than Mind, and
\nSupermind something that is greater the Overmind \u2014 greater, superior not only
\nin the essential character of the planes, but in all respects, in all parts and
\ndetails, and consequently in all its creation.<\/p>\n

But you may say each plane and its creations are beautiful in themselves
\nand have their own perfection and there is no superiority of one to the other.
\nWhat can be more perfect, greater or more beautiful than the glories and
\nbeauties of Matter, the golden splendour of the sun, the perpetual charm of the
\nmoon, the beauty and fragrance of the rose or the beauty of the lotus, the
\nyellow mane of the Ganges or the blue waters of the Jamuna forests and
\nmountains, and the leap of the waterfall, the shimmering silence of the lake,
\nthe sapphire hue and mighty roll of the ocean and all the wonder and marvel
\nthat there is on the earth and in the vastness of the material universe ? These
\nthings are perfect and absolute and there can be nothing more perfect or more
\ngreatly absolute. Life and mind cannot surpass them; they are enough in
\nthemselves and to themselves; Brindavan <\/p>\n

Page – 380<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

would have been
\nperfect even if Krishna had never trod there. It is the
\nsame with Life: the lion in its majesty and strength, the tiger in its splendid
\nand formidable energy, the antelope in its grace and swiftness, the bird of
\nparadise, the peacock with its plumes, the birds with their calls and their
\nvoices of song have the perfection that Life can create and thinking man cannot
\nbetter that; he is inferior to the animals in their own qualities, superior
\nonly in his mind, his thought, his power of reflection and crea\u00adtion: but his
\nthought does not make him stronger than the lion and the tiger or swifter than
\nthe antelope, more splendid to the sight than the bird of paradise or the human
\nbeauty of the most beautiful man and woman superior to the beauty of the animal
\nin its own kind and perfect form. Here too there is a perfection and
\nabsoluteness which cannot be surpassed by any superior great\u00adness of nature.
\nMind also has its own types of perfection and its own absolutes. What intrusion
\nof Overmind or Supermind could produce philosophies more perfect in themselves
\nthan the systems of Shankara or Plato or Plotinus or Spinoza or Hegel, poetry
\nsuperior to Homer’s, Shakespeare’s, Dante\u2019s or Valmiki\u2019s, music more superb
\nthan the music of Beethoven or Bach, sculp\u00adture greater than the statues of
\nPhidias and Michael Angelo, architecture more utterly beautiful than the Taj
\nMahal, the Parthenon or Boro Budoor or St. Peter’s or the great gothic cathe\u00addrals?
\nThe same may be said of the crafts of ancient Greece
\nand Japan and
\nthe Middle Ages or structural feats like the pyramids or engineering feats like
\nDnieper Dam or inventions and manu\u00adfactures like the great modern steamships
\nand the motor car. The mind of man may not be equally satisfied with life in
\ngeneral or with its own dealings with life, it may find all that very imper\u00adfect,
\nand here perhaps it may be conceded that the intrusion of a higher principle
\nfrom above might have a chance of doing something better: but here too there
\nare sectional perfections, each complete and sufficient for its purpose, each
\nperfectly and absolutely organised in its own type, the termite society for in\u00adstance,
\nthe satisfying structure of ant societies or the organised life of the beehive.
\nThe higher animals have been less remark\u00adably successful than these insects,
\nthough perhaps a crows’ par\u00adliament might pass a resolution that the life of
\nthe rookery was <\/p>\n

Page – 381<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

one of the most
\nadmirable things in the universe. Greek societies like the Spartan evidently
\nconsidered themselves perfect and ab\u00adsolute in their own type and the Japanese
\nstructure of society and the rounding off of its culture and institutions were
\nremarkable in their pattern of perfect organisation. There can be always varia\u00adtions
\nin kind, new types, a progress in variation, but a progress in itself towards a
\ngreater perfection or towards some absolute is an idea which has been long
\nindulged in but has recently been strongly denied and at least beyond a certain
\npoint seems to have been denied by fact and event. Evolution there may be, but
\nit only creates new forms, brings in new principles of consciousness, new
\ningenuities of creation but not a more perfect perfection. In the old Hebrew
\nscriptures it is declared that God created every\u00adthing from the first, each
\nthing in its own type, and looked on his own creation and saw that it was good.
\nIf we conclude that Over-mind or Supermind do not exist or, existing, cannot
\ndescend into mind, life and body or act upon them or, descending and acting,
\ncannot bring in a greater or more absolute perfection into anything man has
\ndone, we should, with the modification that God has taken many ages and not six
\ndays to do his work, be reduced to something like this notion, at any rate in
\nprinciple.<\/p>\n

It
\nis evident that there is something wrong and unsatisfying in such a conclusion.
\nEvolution has not been merely something material, only a creation of new forms
\nof Matter, new species of inanimate objects or animate creatures as physical
\nscience has at first seen it: it has been an evolution of consciousness, a mani\u00adfestation
\nof it out of its involution and in that a constant progress towards something
\ngreater, higher, fuller, more complete, ever increasing in its range and
\ncapacity, therefore to a greater and greater perfection and perhaps finally to
\nan absolute of con\u00adsciousness which has yet to come, an absolute of its truth,
\nan absolute of its dynamic power. The mental consciousness of man is greater in
\nits perfection, more progressive towards the absolute than the consciousness of
\nthe animal, and the consciousness of the overman, if I may so call him, must
\nvery evidently be still more perfect, while the consciousness of the superman
\nmay be absolute. No doubt, the instinct of the animal is superior to that of
\nman and we may say that it is perfect and absolute within its <\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

limited range
\nand in its own type. Man’s consciousness has an infinitely greater range and is
\nmore capable in the large, though less automatically perfect, in the details of
\nits work, more labo\u00adrious in its creation of perfection. The Overmind when it
\ncomes will decrease whatever deficiencies there are in human intelligence and
\nthe Supermind will remove them altogether; they will re\u00adplace the perfection of
\ninstinct by the more perfect perfection of intuition and what is higher than
\nintuition and thus replace the automatism of the animal by the conscious and
\nself-possessed automatic action of a more luminous gnosis and finally, of an
\ninte\u00adgral Truth-Consciousness. It is, after all, the greater conscious\u00adness
\nthat comes in with mind that enables us to develop the idea of values and this
\nidea of the quality of certain values which seem to us perfect and absolute is
\na viewpoint which has its validity but must be completed by others if our
\nperception of things is to be entire. No single and separate idea of the mind
\ncan be entirely true by itself, it has to complete itself by others which seem
\nto ‘differ from it, even others which seem logically to contradict it, but in
\nreality only enlarge its viewpoints and put its idea in its proper place. It is
\nquite true that the beauty of material things is perfect in itself and you may
\nsay the descent of Overmind cannot add to the glory of the sun or the beauty of
\nthe rose. But, in the first place, I must point out that the rose as it is is
\nsome\u00adthing evolved from the dog-rose or the wild rose and is largely a creation
\nof man whose mind is still creating further develop\u00adments of this type of
\nbeauty. Moreover, it is to the mind of man that these things are beautiful, to
\nhis consciousness as evolution has developed it, in the values that mind has
\ngiven to them, to his perceptive and sometimes his creative aesthesis:
\nOvermind, I have pointed out, has a greater aesthesis and, when it sees
\nobjects, sees in them what the mind cannot see, so that the value it gives to
\nthem can be greater than any value that the mind can give. That is true of its
\nperception, it may be true also of its creation, its creation of beauty, its
\ncreation of perfection, its expression of the power of the absolute.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

This is in principle the answer to the objection you made, but
\npragmatically the objection may still be valid; for what has been done by any
\noverhead intervention may not amount for the <\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

present to
\nanything more than the occasional irruption of a line or a passage or at most
\nof a new still imperfectly developed kind or manner of poetry which may have
\nlarger contents and a higher or richer suggestion but is not intrinsically
\nsuperior in the essential elements of poetry, word and rhythm and cannot be
\nconfidently said to bring in a more perfect perfection or a more utter
\nabsolute. Perhaps it does sometimes, but not so amply 0r with such a complete
\nand forcible power as to make it recog\u00adnisable by all. But that may be because
\nit is only an interven\u00adtion in mind that it has made, a touch, a partial
\ninfluence, at most a slight infiltration; there has been no general or massive
\ndescent or, if there has been any such descent in one or two minds, it has been
\nfundamental but not yet completely organised or applied in every direction;
\nthere has been no absolute trans\u00adformation of the whole being, whole
\nconsciousness and whole nature. You say that if the Overmind has a superior
\nconscious\u00adness and a greater aesthesis it must also bring in a greater form.
\nThat would be true on the Overmind level itself: if there were an Overmind
\nlanguage created by the Overmind itself and used by Overmind beings not subject
\nto the limitations of the mental principle or the turbidities of the life
\nprinciple or the opposition of the inertia of Matter, the half light of
\nignorance and the dark environing wall of the Inconscient, then indeed all
\nthings might be transmuted and among the rest there might be a more perfect and
\nabsolute poetry, perfect and absolute not only in snatches and within
\nboundaries but always and in numberless kinds and in the whole: for that is the
\nnature of Overmind, it is a cosmic consciousness with a global perception and
\naction tending to carry everything to its extreme possibility; the only thing lacking in its
\ncreation might be a complete harmonisation of all possibles, for which the
\nintervention of the highest Truth-Consciousness, the Supermind, would be
\nindispensable. But at present the intervention of Overmind has to take mind,
\nlife and Matter as its medium and field, work under their dominant condition,
\naccept their fundamental law and method; its own can enter in only initially or
\npartially and under the obstacle of a prevailing mental and vital mixture.
\nIntuition entering into the human mind undergoes a change; it becomes what we
\nmay call <\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

the mental
\nintuition or the vital intuition or the intuition working inconsciently in
\nphysical things: sometimes it may work with a certain perfection and
\nabsoluteness, but ordinarily it is at once coated in mind or life with the
\nmental or vital substance into which it is received and gets limited, deflected
\nor misinterpreted by the mind or the life; it becomes a half intuition or a
\nfalse intui\u00adtion and its light and power gives indeed a greater force to human
\nknowledge and will but also to human error. Life and mind intervening in Matter
\nhave been able only to vitalise or mentalise small sections of it, to produce
\nand develop living bodies or thinking lives and bodies but they have not been
\nable to make a complete or general transformation of the ignorance of life, of
\nthe inertia and inconscience of Matter and large parts of the minds, lives and
\nforms they occupy remain subconscient or inconscient or are still ignorant,
\nlike the human mind itself or driven by subconscient forces. Overmind will
\ncertainly, if it descends, go further in that direction, effect a greater
\ntransforma\u00adtion of life and bodily function as well as mind but the integral
\ntransformation is not likely to be in its power; for it is not in itself the
\nsupreme consciousness and does not carry in it the su\u00adpreme force: although
\ndifferent from mind in the principle and methods of its action, it is only a
\nhighest kind of mind with the pure intuition, illumination and higher thought
\nas its subordi\u00adnates and intermediaries; it is an instrument of cosmic pos\u00adsibilities
\nand not the master. It is not the supreme Truth-Consciousness; it is only an
\nintermediary light and power.<\/p>\n

As
\nregards poetry, the Overmind has to use a language which has been made by mind,
\nnot by itself and therefore fully capable of receiving and expressing its
\ngreater light and greater truth, its extraordinary powers, its forms of
\ngreatness, perfection and beauty. It can only strain and intensify this medium
\nas much as possible for its own uses, but not change its fundamental or
\ncharacteristically mental law and method; it has to observe them and do what it
\ncan to heighten, deepen and enlarge. Per\u00adhaps what Mallarm\u00e9 and other poets
\nwere or are trying to do was some fundamental transformation of that kind, but
\nthat incurs the danger of being profoundly and even unfathomably obscure or
\nbeautifully and splendidly unintelligible. There is <\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

here another
\npoint of view which it may be useful to elaborate Poets are men of genius whose
\nconsciousness has in some way or<\/i> another attained to a higher dynamis of
\nconception and expression than ordinary men can hope to have \u2014 though ordinary
\nmen often have a good try for it, with the result that they sometimes show a
\ntalent for verse and an effective language which imposes itself for a time but
\nis not durable. I have said that genius is the result of an intervention or
\ninfluence from a higher consciousness than the ordinary human mental, a greater
\nlight, a greater force; even an ordinary man can have strokes of genius
\nresulting from such an intervention but it is only in a few that the rare
\nphenomenon occurs of a part of the consciousness being moulded into a habitual
\nmedium of expression of its greater light and force. But the intervention of
\nthis higher consciousness may take different forms. It may bring in, not the
\nhigher consciousness itself but a substitute for it, an uplifted movement of
\nmind which gives a reflection of the character and qualities of the overhead
\nmovement. There is a substitute for the expression of the Higher Thought, the
\nIllumination, the pure Intuition giving great or brilliant results, but these
\ncannot be classed as the very body of the higher consciousness. So also there
\ncan be a mixed movement, a movement of mind in its full force with flashes from
\nthe overhead or even a light sustained for some time. Finally, there can be the
\nthing itself in rare descents, but usually these are not sustained for a long
\ntime though they may <\/i>influence all around and produce long stretches of
\na high utterance. All this we can see in poetry but it is not easy for the
\nordinary mind to make these distinctions or even to feel the thing and more
\ndifficult still to understand it with an exact intelligence One<\/span> must have oneself lived in the
\nlight or have had flashes of it in oneself in order to recognise it when it
\nmanifests outside us. It is easy to make mistakes of appreciation: it is quite
\ncommon to miss altogether the tinge of the superior light even while one sees
\nit or to think and say only, "Ah, yes, this is very great poetry."<\/p>\n

There are other
\nquestions that can arise, objections that can be raised against our admission of
\na complete equality between the best of all kinds in poetry. First of all, is it
\na fact that all<\/p>\n

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\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

kinds
\nof poetry actually stand on an equal level or are potentially capable by
\nintensity in their own kind, of such a divine equality ? Satirical poetry, for
\ninstance, has often been considered as infe\u00adrior in essential quality to the
\nepic or other higher kinds of crea\u00adtion. Can the best lines of Juvenal, for
\ninstance, the line about the graeculus
\nesuriens <\/i>be<\/span> the equal of Virgil’s O passi graviora, <\/i>or his sunt lacrimae rerum?<\/i><\/span> Can
\nPope’s attack on Addison,\u00a0 <\/span>im\u00adpeccable in
\nexpression and unsurpassable in its poignancy of satiric point and force and
\nits still more poignant conclusion<\/p>\n

Who
\nbut must laugh, if such a man there be? <\/i><\/p>\n

Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?<\/i><\/p>\n

be put on a same poetical level with the great lines of Shakespeare which
\nI have admitted as having the Overmind inspiration? The question is complicated
\nby the fact that some lines or passages of what is classed as satirical verse
\nare not strictly satirical but have the tone of a more elevated kind of poetry
\nand rise to a very high level of \/poetic beauty, \u2014 for instance, Dryden’s
\ndescriptions of Absalom and Achitophel as opposed to his brilliant assault on
\nthe second duke of Buckingham. Or can we say that apart from this question of
\nsatire we can equal together the best from poetry of a lighter kind with that
\nwhich has a high seriousness or intention, for instance, the mock epic with the
\nepic? There are critics now who are in ecstasies over Pope’s Rape of the Lock<\/i><\/span> and put it on the very highest
\nlevel, but we could hardly reconcile ourselves to classing any lines from it
\nwith a supreme line from Homer or Milton. <\/b>Or<\/span> can the perfect force of Lucan\u2019s line,<\/p>\n

Victrix causa
\ndeis placuit, sed victa Catoni,<\/i><\/p>\n

which has made it immortal induce us to rank it on a level of equality
\nwith the greater lines of Virgil ? We may escape from this difficulty of our
\nown logic by pointing out that when we speak of perfection we mean perfection
\nof something essential for poetic beauty and not only perfection of speech and
\nverse however excellent and consummate in its own inferior kind. Or we may<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

say that we are speaking not only
\nof perfection but of a kind of perfection that has something of the absolute.
\nBut then we may be taxed with throwing overboard our own first principle and
\nranking poetry according to the greatness or beauty of its substance, its
\nintention and its elevation and not solely on its artistic completeness of
\nlanguage and rhythm in its own kind.<\/p>\n

We
\nhave then to abandon any thorough-going acceptance of the art for art’s sake
\nstandpoint and admit that our proposition of the equality of absolute
\nperfection of different kinds, different inspirations of poetry applies only to
\nall that has some quintessence of highest poetry in it. An absolutely
\naccomplished speech and metrical movement, a sovereign technique are not
\nenough; we are thinking of a certain pitch of flight and not only of its
\nfaultless agility and grace. Overmind or overhead poetry must always have in
\nits very nature that essential quality, although owing to the conditions and
\ncircumstances of <\/sup>its intervention, the limitation of its action, it
\ncan only sometimes have it in any supreme fullness or absoluteness. It can open
\npoetry to the expression of new ranges of vision, experience and feeling,
\nespecially the spiritual and the higher mystic, with all their inexhaustible
\npossibilities, which a more mental inspiration could not so fully and
\npowerfully see and express except in moments when something of the overhead power
\ncame to its succour; it can bring in new rhythms and a new intensity of
\nlanguage: but so long as it is merely an intervention in mind, we cannot
\nconfidently claim more for it. At the same time if we look carefully and subtly
\nat things we may see that the greatest lines or passages in the world’s
\nliterature have the Overmind touch or power and that they bring with them an
\natmosphere, a profound or an extraordinary light, an amplitude of wing which,
\nif the Overmind would not only intervene but descend, seize wholly and
\ntransform, would be the first glimpse of a poetry, higher, larger, deeper and
\nmore consistently absolute than any which the human past has been able to give
\nus. An evolutionary ascent of all the activities of mind and life is not
\nimpossible.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

20.11.1946<\/p>\n

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