Reflections on Sri Aurobindo’s Poetry

Old nature sits a phantom by the way, Old passions may forbid, old doubts return. Then are there other lives here or beyond To satisfy us. I will persist, O Lord.

Humanity, acceptable I find Thy ages that have wept out sweat and blood, Since all was made to give its utter price To one wild moment of thy hidden God.

Still, still my soul remembered its delight, Denying mind, and midst the body’s pain, I laughed contented.

O joy of gaining all the soul’s desire! O stranger joy of the defeat and loss! O heart that yearnest to uplift the world!

It is a prayer of the conversion of the Asura.

Sri Aurobindo's poem gives us a new and unique perspective on Death.

Sri Aurobindo's poem 'Life and Death' opens for us a perspective on life and death not as two opposites but as two different modes of existence.

This talk is centred around Sri Aurobindo's sonnet.