Sri Aurobindo and Poetry

SRI AUROBINDO AND POETRYtc "SRI AUROBINDO AND POETRY"

The eternal knowledge concealed in the Vedas is the knowledge of the soul.  The Vedas are considered the repository of all knowledge.  According to the Vedas, it is acquiring the knowledge of the soul that is true education.  The education that awakens the soul is true wisdom.  The comprehension of the soul imparts us the knowledge that enables to take the right attitude towards life.

The ancient sages have proclaimed this knowledge as the true education bereft of which Man becomes an animal.  Acquiring of this spiritual knowledge has been gradually sidelined through the ages.  The absence of this is taking the individual in particular and the society in general towards degeneration.  Great men endowed with this spiritual learning appear once in many years and through their life and actions renew the knowledge and set an example to the society.

The Modern generation devoid of this knowledge and there being no urge or even an inclination to acquire this knowledge wallow in mundane existence, the lower form of living.  To exemplify, great men as Vedavyasa, Yagnavalkya down to the modern seers such as Swami Vivekananda, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo through their writings and lives become a role model to the world.  They acquired this knowledge through the practice of yoga.  They had at their disposal the power to witness their own spiritual evolution.  The spiritual evolution is nothing but the heightening of one’s own consciousness to identify the soul and the infinite consciousness, the Mother Aditi and thus culminating in their union.  They imparted the true knowledge to the world through their literature.

Sri Aurobindo, one of the famous of the modern Indian yogis, attempts to transform the world into that of superhuman beings through his literature.  After the yogic realization, the spiritual attainment made an illuminative and transformative impact upon his literary knowledge and insight and gave him both a universal and transcendental outlook on all significant aspects and problems of poetry and art.  Thus to him, literature was completely spiritually oriented and the significance and spiritual function of art and poetry was to liberate man to pure delight, the Ananda and to bring beauty into his life. The highest kinds of delight and beauty, according to him, are those that are one with the highest Truth, the perfection of life and the purest and fullest joy of the self-revealing spirit.

Probing into the poetry of the modern times with his yogic insight, he finds that the art form neither offers any universal vision nor it holds the ancient sacred prestige but it was through poetry, of the three literary art forms that the transformation of the world into that of superhuman beings was possible.  Thus, in an attempt to revive the lost prestige and to transform the world into that of superhuman beings, he uses poetry as an instrument.

To him, poetry is the expression and movement which comes from us out of a certain spiritual excitement caused by a vision in the soul of which it is eager to deliver itself and that it comes into being at the right call of three powers inspiration, beauty and delight and brings them to us and us to them by the magic charm of inspired rhythmic word.  He names this inspired rhythmic word as the Mantra of the real.  Here the true creator and the true hearer is the soul; the imagination, the intelligence are only the channels and instruments.

The poetry, according to him was more a creation of vision than of intelligence. For he believes that beyond the intellect there is the spirit and that poetry is the language of the expression of it.  It is to see the unseen and speak the wordless.
As the poetry is the language of the Unseen and the wordless the breath of creation according to Sri Aurobindo, is profound, indefinable and elusive.  Any attempt to define poetry would be to dissect the myriad-stringed harp of Saraswathi into pieces.

Sri Aurobindo believes that it is the Superconscient nature force that gives the poetic words the power of speech.  This Superconscient nature force lies above the mental planes.  In order to bring it down, one has to heighten his level of consciousness and it is the soul that recognizes it as the Mother Aditi, Infinite consciousness and brings down to manifest itself as the poetic word and thus culminates in the transformation of the individual as a whole.  When the individual transforms himself he sees the Divine element in him and in others also.  Sri Aurobindo calls this ascending and descending of the soul to bring down the Supermental consciousness as Integral yoga.  An ectasy is felt when the secret of the mystery is being unveiled and visualized.  At the highest stage the poet becomes one with the Divine.  Everything looks beautiful.  Thus Sri Aurobindo regards the poet as the Seer and hearer of the inner supreme Truth.

The Vedic dictum ‘Kavayah satyasruthaha and kavayah satya druthah’ is being enshrined here.  The vision of Truth is the enlightening power of poetic creation. Here, the poet’s function is to create but not to re-create.  According to Sri Aurobindo, poetry is constant life music and the poet is a singer of Truth and the chief function of poetry is to present to us the living beauty and reality, the simple natural innate spontaneous life-breath, flow and movement of things and man and the world in their totality. It is the creation of a living energy that is always new and fresh. Poetry that is infused with the greater breath of life elevates the earthly life to Divine life.
From the above discussion, one discerns that to Sri Aurobindo, poetry is nothing but the expression of spiritual experience and realization of the infinite consciousness.  Thus, to those that are uninitiated to the secrets of spiritual life, his poetry wears somewhat an uncommon complexion.

As a visionary poet who considers poetry a vehicle to express the effusions of spiritual vision and spiritual illuminations, he says that the critic has to go by the judgement of his soul because the spiritual vision of things which he speaks here is neither a criticism of life nor an intellectual or philosophical view of things, but a soul-view, a seizing by the inner sense.

Thus his poetry requires to be read, enjoyed and applauded not according to the conventional standards of poetry but differently aesthetically, spiritually and intuitively.  He enlarges the field of poetic creation by making it an expression of the bondless and innumerable riches that lie concealed and unexplored. Elevating the meaning of poetry from the conventional norms it holds, he gives it a new direction i.e. he interprets the same old Vedic concept of poetry with his own ideas in an innovative way.  He urges the future poets not to look into poetry only from a literary perspective but to look into it with a spirituo-philosophical perspective also.  Thus he condemns the poets of the medieval times in India who looked into poetry only from a literary perspective.  He regards poetry that is written from the traditional literary standards as something lower.  He urges the future poets to compose poetry from a spirituo-philosophical perspective intending to culminate in the transformation of the human race to that of superhuman beings.  His magnum opus Savitri is a living example to this.

From the yogic insight, he presages the probability of his concept of poetry in the future.  As he very well knows that Sanskrit language lacks catholicity, he expects the English poets to write poetry from a spirituo-philosophical perspective that culminates in the transformation of the human race to that of Gnostic being.  According to him, the English poets are in the scale of ascension of his spiritual evolution.

My intention to write about the visionary poet Sri Aurobindo is to show how he sidelines the poets who write poetry from the conventional norms and writes poetry based on his own integral philosophy transcending the confinements and thus restores the ancient sacred prestige.  His definition of poetry as the mantra of the real shows much of his esoteric approach, wide reading and catholic taste.  To comprehend his poetry, one needs to probe deeply with a hermetic concentration and spiritual insight.

“We are human coverings over the divine”
“Obey the scriptures until you are strong enough
to do without them’
“Love is higher than work, Yoga and Knowledge”

                                                                                                                                                - Swami Vivekananda