Sri Aurobindo's notes and letters on his life and yoga and letters on Himself and on The Mother.
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Sri Aurobindo's notes and letters on his life and yoga and letters on Himself and on The Mother. In these letters, Sri Aurobindo writes about his life as a student in England, a teacher in Baroda, a political leader in Bengal, and a writer and yogi in Pondicherry. He also comments on his formative spiritual experiences and the development of his yoga.
THEME/S
Q: As regards poetry, inspiration exists, so also effort.
Page 230
The first leaves one sometimes and one goes on beating and beating, hammering and hammering, but it comes not!
A: Exactly. When any real effect is produced, it is not because of the beating and the hammering, but because an inspiration slips down between the raising of the hammer and the falling and gets in under cover of the beastly noise. It is when there is no need of effort that the best comes. Effort is all right, but only as an excuse for inducing the Inspiration to come. If it wants to come, it comes, if it doesn't, it doesn't and one is obliged to give up after producing nothing or an inferior mind-made something. I have had that experience often enough myself. I have seen X also often producing something good but not perfect, beating the air and hammering it with proposed versions each as bad as the other; for it is only a new inspiration that can really improve a defect in the transcription of the first one. Still one makes efforts, but it is not the effort that produces the result but the inspiration that comes in answer to it. You knock at the door to make the fellow inside answer. He may or he may not; if he lies mum, you have only to walk off, swearing. That's effort and inspiration.
6-3-1936
*
Q: Do you mean that this method [to "sit in vacant meditation and see what comes from the intuitive Gods"] can really do something? I understand that you wrote many things in that way, but people also say that Gods—no, Goddesses used to come and tell you the meaning of Vedas.
A: It was a joke. But all the same that is the way things are supposed to come. When the mind becomes decently quiet, an intuition perfect or imperfect is supposed to come hopping along and jump in and look round the place. Of course, it is not the only way. People tell a stupendous amount of rubbish. I wrote everything I have written since 1909 in that way, i.e. out of or
Page 231
rather through a silent mind, and not only a silent mind but a silent consciousness. But Gods and Goddesses had nothing to do with the matter.
22-10-1935
Home
Sri Aurobindo
Books
SABCL
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.