{"id":2544,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2544"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:20","slug":"07-poet-yogi-rishi-prophet-genius-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/27-letters-on-poetry-and-art\/07-poet-yogi-rishi-prophet-genius-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","title":{"rendered":"-07_Poet, Yogi, Rishi, Prophet, Genius.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t <\/p>\n

\nPoet, Yogi, Rishi, Prophet, Genius <\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe Poet, the Yogi and the Rishi  <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIt is quite natural for the poets to vaunt their metier <\/i>as the
\nhighest reach of human capacity and themselves as the top of creation; it is also natural for the intellectuals to run down the
\nYogi or the Rishi who claims to reach a higher consciousness than that which they conceive to be the summit of human
\nachievement. The poet indeed lives still in the mind and is not yet a spiritual seer, but he represents to the human intellect the
\nhighest point of mental seership where the imagination tries to figure and embody in words its intuition of things, though
\nthat stands far below the vision of things that can be grasped only by spiritual experience. It is for that the poet is exalted
\nas the real seer and prophet. There is too, helping the idea, the error of the modern or European mentality which so easily
\nconfuses the mentalised vital or life being with the soul and the idealising mind with spirituality. The poet imaging mental or
\nphysical beauty is for the outer mind something more spiritual than the seer or the God-lover experiencing the eternal peace or
\nthe ineffable ecstasy. Yet the Rishi or Yogi can drink of a deeper draught of Beauty and Delight than the imagination of the poet
\nat its highest can conceive. (
\nরেসা <\/span><\/span>
\n\t
\n\t\t\tৈব<\/span> সঃ<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\u2014<\/span><\/font>The Divine is Delight.<\/i>)
\nAnd it is not only the unseen Beauty that he can see but the visible and tangible also has for him a face of the All-Beautiful
\nwhich the mind cannot discover.                  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t10 November 1934
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n*<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

You seem almost to say that the poet is necessarily not a seer or
\nRishi. But if the mere poet is not a Rishi, the Rishi after all can be a poet ―the greater can contain the less, even though the less
\nis not the greater. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t11 November 1934
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n

\nPage-102<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

A Rishi is one who sees <\/i>or discovers an inner truth and puts it into self-effective language
\n\t\t\t―the mantra. Either new truth or
\nold truth made new by expression and intuitive realisation. <\/p>\n

He [Ramana Maharshi<\/i>] has experienced certain eternal
\ntruths by process of Yoga ―I don’t think it is by Rishilike intuition or illumination, nor has he the mantra.   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t10 February 1936<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t* <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\nA Rishi may be a Yogi, but also he may not; a Yogi too may be a Rishi, but also he may not. Just as a philosopher may or may
\nnot be a poet and a poet may or may not be a philosopher. <\/p>\n

Poetic intuition and illumination is not the same thing as
\nRishi intuition and illumination.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t11 February 1936
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Poet and the Prophet <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essentially the poet’s value lies in his poetic and not in his
\nprophetic power. If he is a prophet also, the intrinsic worth of his prophecy lies in its own value, his poetic merit does not
\nadd to that, only it gives to its expression a power that perhaps it would not have otherwise.           <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t7 November 1934
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Poet and the Verse Writer
\n<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No poet feels his poetry as a “normal phenomenon”
\n\t―he feels it as an inspiration ―of course anybody could “make” poetry by
\nlearning the rules of prosody and a little practice. In fact many people write verse, but the poets are few. Who are the ordinary
\npoets? There is no such thing as an ordinary poet.             <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t30 June 1936
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All that is written in metre is called verse. If it is written with
\ninspiration, it is poetry.           <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t27 May 1937<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage-103<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tThe “Born” Poet <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You must remember that you are not a “born” poet
\n\t―you are
\ntrying to bring out something from the Unmanifest inside you. You can’t demand that that should be an easy job. It may come
\nout suddenly and without apparent reason like the Ananda ―but you can’t demand it. The pangs of delivery cannot always
\nbe avoided. <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t8 June 1934 <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

A born poet is usually a genius, poetry with any power or beauty
\nin it implies genius. <\/p>\n

               <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t13 February 1936
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPoetic Genius<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poetic genius
\n\t―without which there cannot be any originality ―is inborn, but it takes time to come out
\n\t―the first work even of great poets is often unoriginal. That is in ordinary life. In
\nYoga poetic originality can come by an opening from within, even if it was not there before in such a way as to be available
\nin this life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t22 March 1934<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For poetry one must have a special inspiration or genius. With
\nliterary capacity one can write good verse only. <\/p>\n

Genius usually means an inborn power which develops of
\nitself. Talent and capacity are not genius, that can be acquired. But that is the ordinary rule, by Yoga one can manifest what is
\nconcealed in the being. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t22 September 1934
\n\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGenius <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I never heard of anyone getting genius by effort. One can increase
\none’s talent by training and labour, but genius is a gift of Nature. By sadhana it is different, one can do it; but that is not the fruit
\nof effort, but either of an inflow or by an opening or liberation of some impersonal power or manifestation of unmanifested
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage-104<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

power. No rule can be made in such things; it depends on persons and circumstances how far the manifestation of genius by Yoga
\nwill go or what shape it will take or to what degree or height it will rise. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t28 July 1938 <\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOf course it is quite possible to be an idiot and a genius at the same time ―one can, that is to say, be the medium of a specialised and specific force which leaves the rest of the being brute stuff, unchanged and undeveloped. Genius is a phenomenon
\nsui generis <\/i>and many anomalies occur in its constitution by Nature. <\/p>\n

\n13 February 1936<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-105<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poet, Yogi, Rishi, Prophet, Genius   The Poet, the Yogi and the Rishi    It is quite natural for the poets to vaunt their metier…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","wpcat-51-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}