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SECTION EIGHT POETIC CREATION AND YOGA—UTILITY OF LITERATURE, ETC. IN SADHANA
Reading and Poetic Creation and Yoga A LITERARY man is one who loves literature and literary activities for their own separate sake. A Yogi who writes is not a literary man for he writes only what the inner Will and Word wants him to express. He is a channel and instrument of something greater than his own literary personality. Of course the literary man and the intellectual love reading—-books are their mind’s food. But writing is another matter. There are plenty of people who never write a word in the literary way but are enormous readers. One reads for ideas, for knowledge, for the stimulation of the mind by all that the world has thought or is thinking. I never read in order to create. As the Yoga increased, I read very little—for when all the ideas in the world come crowding from within or from above, there is not much need for gathering mental food from outside sources; at most a utility for keeping oneself informed of what is happening in the world,—but not as material for building up one’s vision of the world and Truth and things. One becomes an Page – 285 independent mind in communion with the cosmic Thinker. Poetry, even perhaps all perfect expression of whatever kind, comes by inspiration, not by reading. Reading helps only to acquire for the instrument the full possession of a language or to get the technique of literary expression. Afterwards one develops ones own use of the language, ones own style, ones own technique. It is a decade or two that I have stopped all but the most casual reading but my power of poetic and perfect expression has increased tenfold. What I wrote with some difficulty, often with great difficulty, I now write with ease. I am supposed to be a philosopher, but I never studied philosophy—everything I wrote came from Yogic experience, knowledge and inspiration. So too my greater power over poetry and perfect expression was acquired in these last days not by reading and seeing how other people wrote, but from the heightening of my consciousness and the greater inspiration that came from the heightening. Reading and painstaking labour are good for the literary man but even for him they are not the cause of his good writing, only an aid to it. The cause is within himself. As to ‘natural’, I don’t know. Sometimes when the talent is inborn, and ready for expression, they. can call it natural. Sometimes Page – 286 times it awakes from within afterwards from a till then hidden nature.
11-9-1934 I HAVE always told you that you ought not to stop your poetry and similar activities. It is a mistake to do so out of asceticism or tapasya. One can stop these things when they drop of themselves because one is full of experience and so interested in one’s inner life that one has no energy to spare for the rest. Even then, there is no rule for giving up, for there is no reason why poetry, etc., should not be a part of sadhana. The love of applause, of fame, the ego-feeling have to be given up, but that can be done without giving up the activity itself. What you write is perfectly true, that all human greatness and fame and achievement are nothing before the greatness of the Infinite and the Eternal. There are two possible deductions from that: first that all human action has to be renounced and one should go into a cave; the other is that one should grow out of ego so that the activities of the nature may become one day consciously an action of the Page – 287 Infinite and Eternal. I myself never gave up poetry or other creative human activities out of tapasya; they fell into a subordinate position because the inner life became stronger and stronger slowly: nor did I really drop them, only I had so heavy a work laid upon me that I could not find time to go on. But it took me years and years to get the ego out of them or the vital absorption, but I never heard. anybody say nor did it ever occur to me that that was a proof that I was not born for Yoga. You say I had made the mistake of my life in pronouncing you to be a "born Yogi"? I had not. I very explicitly based my remark on the personality that showed itself in your earlier experiences in a very vivid way which no one accustomed to the things of the Yoga or having any knowledge about them could fail to recognise. But I did not mean that there was nothing in you which was foreign to a "born Yogi". Everyone has many personalities in him and many of them are not Yogic at all in their propensities. But if one has the will to Yoga, the "born Yogi" prevails as soon as he gets a chance of manifesting himself through the crust of the mind and vital nature. Only, very often that takes time. One must be prepared to give the time. Page – 288 IT would be a mistake to silence the poetic flow on principle; the creative habit is a tonic to the vital and keeps it in good condition and the practice of sadhana needs a strong and widening vital for its support. There is no real incompatibility between the creative power and silence; for the real silence is something inward and it does not or at least need not cease when a strong activity or expression rises to the surface. THE word is a sound expression of the idea. In the supra-physical plane when an idea has to be realised, one can by repeating the word-expression of it, produce vibrations which prepare the mind for the realisation of the idea. That is the principle of the mantras and of japa. One repeats the name of the Divine and the vibrations created in the consciousness prepare the realisation of the Divine. It is the same idea that is expressed in the Bible: "God said. Let there be Light, and there was Light". It is creation by the Word.
6-5-1933 Page – 289 IT is your aim to write from the Divine and for the Divine—you should then try to make all equally a pure transcription from the inner source and where the inspiration fails return upon your work so as to make the whole worthy of its origin and its object. All work done for the Divine, from poetry and art and music to carpentry or baking or sweeping a room, should be made perfect even in its smallest external detail as well as in the spirit in which it is done; for only then is it an altogether fit offering.
11-11-1931 Development of Mind and Sadhana THE development of the mind is a useful preliminary for the Sadhak; it can also be pursued along with the sadhana on condition that it is not given too big a place and does not interfere with the one important thing, the sadhana itself
1933 Page – 290 YES, the real knowledge comes of itself from within by the touch of the Divine. Reading can be only a momentary help to prepare the mind. But the real knowledge does not come by reading. Some preparation for the inner knowledge may be helpful —but the mind should not be too superficially active or seek to know only for curiosity’s sake. IT won’t do to put excessive and sweeping constructions on what I write, otherwise it is easy to misunderstand its real significance. I said there was no reason why poetry of a spiritual character (not any poetry like Verlaine’s or Swinburne’s or Baudelaire’s) should bring no realisation at all. This did not mean that poetry is a major means of realisation of the Divine. I did not say that it would lead us to the Divine or that anyone had achieved the Divine through poetry or that poetry by itself can lead us straight into the sanctuary. Obviously, if such exaggerations are put into my words, they become absurd and untenable* Page – 291 My statement is perfectly clear and there is nothing in it against reason or common sense. The Word has power—even the ordinary written word has a power. If it is an inspired word it has still more power. What kind of power or power for what depends on the nature of the inspiration and the theme and the part of the being it touches. If it is the Word itself,—as in certain utterances of the great Scriptures, Veda, Upanishads, Gita, it may well have a power to awaken a spiritual and uplifting impulse even certain kinds of realisation. To say that it cannot contradicts spiritual experience. The Vedic poets regarded their poetry as Mantras, they were the vehicles of their own realisations and could become vehicles of realisation for others. Naturally, these mostly would be illuminations, not the settled and permanent realisation that is the goal of Yoga—but they could be steps on the way or at least lights on the way. I have had in former times many, illuminations, even initial realisations while meditating on verses of the Upanishads or the Gita. Anything that carries the Word, the Light in it, spoken or written, can light this fire within,. open a sky, as it were, bring the effective vision of which the Word is the body. You yourself know that some of your poems deeply moved people who had the tendency towards spiritual things; Many Page – 292 have got openings into realisation while reading passages of the "Arya"— which are not poetry, have not the power of spiritual poetry—but it shows all the more that the word is not without power even for the things of the spirit. In all ages spiritual seekers have expressed their aspirations or their experiences in poetry or inspired language and it has helped them and others. Therefore there is nothing absurd in my assigning to such poetry a spiritual or psychic value and effectiveness of a psychic or spiritual character. Utility of Literature, etc. in Yoga – (1) LITERATURE like anything else can be made an instrumentation for the Divine Life. It can be made of some spiritual importance if it is taken up with that aim and, even so, it cannot have that importance for everybody. In ordinary life no particular pursuit or study can be imposed as necessary for everybody; it cannot be positively necessary for everybody to have a mastery of English literature or to be a Page – 293 reader of poetry or a scientist or acquainted with all the sciences (or encyclopaedia of knowledge). What is important is to have an instrument of knowledge that will apply itself accurately, calmly, perfectly to all that it has to handle. Utility of Literature, etc. in Yoga – (2) Literature, poetry, science and other studies can be a preparation of the consciousness for life. When one does Yoga they can become part of the sadhana only if done for the Divine or taken up by the divine Force, but then one should not want to be a poet for the sake of being a poet only, or for fame, applause, etc.
April, 1935 Utility of Literature, etc. in Yoga – (3) This poetry, even if it does not lead to any realisation —though there is no reason why it should not, since it is not mundane,—is yet a link with the inner being and expresses its ideal. That is its value for the sadhana.
28-12-1934 Page – 294 Literature and Change of Nature GOOD heavens! where did you get this idea that literature can transform people? Literary people are often the most impossible on the face of the earth… .Outer human nature can only change either by an intense psychic development or a strong and all-pervading influence from above. It is the inner being that has to change first—a change which is not always visible outside. That has nothing to do with the development of the faculties which is another side of the personality. That is another question altogether. But such sadhana means a slow laborious work of self-change in most cases, so why not sing on the way? Novel-Reading in Sadhana - (1) READING novels is always distracting if you are deep in sadhana. It is better to avoid it now.
1933 Page – 295 Novel-Reading in Sadhana – (2) If novels touch the lower vital of raise it, they ought not to be read by the sadhak. One can read them only if one can look at them from the literary point of view as a picture of human life and nature which one can observe, as the Yogi looks at life itself, without being involved in it or having any reaction.
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