November 5, 1933
I have read the last pages and have no words to praise their perfection of feeling and expression, their restrained power and beauty. You wrote some wonderful lyrics with the psychic note when the poetic faculty first opened in you, but this I think is your high water-mark — though I have no doubt you will surpass it hereafter, even if that does not look an easy thing to do. I will read the whole over again once more — time or no time.
Go on the path of Yoga without doubt of the ultimate success — surely you cannot fail! Doubts — they are nothing; keep the fire of aspiration burning, it is that that conquers.
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November 14, 1933
No, the supramental has not descended into the body or into Matter — it is only at the point where such a descent has become not only possible but inevitable — I am speaking, of course, of my own experience. But as my experience is the centre and condition of all the rest, that is sufficient for the promise.
I am not able to answer your letter just now for it is full of bristling questions, but I shall do it today — in the course of the day. Only my difficulty is that you all seem to expect a kind of miraculous fairy-tale change and do not realise that it is a rapid and concentrated evolution which is the aim of my sadhana and that there must be a process for it, a working of the higher in the lower and a dealing with all the necessary materials — not a sudden feat of the Creator by which everything is done on a given date. It is a supramental but not an irrational process. What is to be done will happen — perhaps with a rush even — but in a workmanlike way and not according to Faerie.
However I will try to explain all that as far as possible — in principle only of course — as far as it can be explained to the physical mind which has not yet any vision of what the supramental is. For the rest, I will try to meet the points you make.
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November 15, 1933
I find there is no chance of finishing any long letter on the Supramental today — for the Overmind has heaped Andes on Himalayas and the Alps on the Andes (paper of course) and buried me underneath the mass. So I shall only pen a few passing answers to details today.
First, what is a perfect technique of Yoga or rather of a world-changing or Nature-changing Yoga? Not one that takes one man by a little bit of him somewhere, attaches a hook and pulls him up by a pulley into Nirvana or Paradise? The technique of a world-changing Yoga has to be as multiform, sinuous, patient, all-including as the world itself — has it not? If it does not deal with all the difficulties or possibilities and carefully deal with each necessary element, has it any chance of success? And can a perfect technique which everybody can understand do that? It is not like writing a small poem in a fixed metre with a limited number of modulations. If you take the poem simile, it is the Mahabharata of a Mahabharata that has to be done. And what, compared with the limited Greek perfection, is the technique of the Mahabharata?
Next, what is the use of vicārabuddhi in such a case? If one has to get a new consciousness which surpasses the reasoning intellect, can one do it on lines which are to be judged and understood by the reasoning intellect, controlled at every step by it, told by the intellect what it is to do, what is the measure of its achievements, what its steps must be and what their value? If one does that, will one ever get out of the range of the reasoning intelligence into what is beyond it? And if one does, how shall others judge what one is doing by the intellectual measure? How can one judge what is beyond the ordinary consciousness when one is oneself in the ordinary consciousness? Is it not only by exceeding yourself that you can feel, experience, judge what exceeds you? What is the value of a judgment without the feeling and experience?
What the Supramental will do the mind cannot foresee or lay down. The mind is Ignorance seeking for the Truth, the supramental by its very definition is Truth-Consciousness, Truth in possession of itself and fulfilling itself by its own power. In a supramental world imperfection and disharmony are bound to disappear. But what we propose just now is not to make the earth a supramental world but to bring down the supramental as a power and established consciousness in the midst of the rest — to let it work there and fulfil itself as Mind descended into Life and Matter and has worked as a Power there to fulfil itself in the midst of the rest. This will be enough to change the world and to change Nature by breaking down her present limits. But what, how, by what degrees it will do it, is a thing that ought not to be said now — when the Light is there, the Light will itself do its work — when the Supramental Will stands on earth, that Will will decide. It will establish a perfection, a harmony, a Truth-creation — for the rest, well, it will be the rest — that is all.
This is only a preface — the book follows.
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November 16, 1933
My poem — the duologue between Cloud and Earth — I send herewith. Please tell me the difference between allegory and symbolism so that I may classify this poem.
There is a difference between symbolism and allegory. Allegory is when a quality or other abstract thing is personalised — symbolism is when a living truth is given an image or figure — in mystic poetry a living truth is a living image or figure. Allegory is an intellectual form for nobody believes in the personalisation of the abstract quality, it is only a poetic device. Symbolism supposes that both the truth and the symbol are living powers.
In this duologue I have imagined the Earth and the Cloud as conscious sentient entities. True, I have made each the mouth-piece of my own feelings and intuitions, but while I expressed these I was struck by a profound inarticulate stirring within me which suggested to me that my attribution of consciousness to them was perhaps not entirely fanciful as physical science would, doubtless, opine. I mean, I felt as though the Earth too had a concrete sentient rhythm of its own and could aspire for the Descent of the Supramental (of which I have written in her own words) thereby preparing herself more and more to receive it. But what about the Cloud, and shall we say Fire? Is my feeling true that they also count as sentient entities?
Entirely true as far as the Earth is concerned and true not so much for the cloud as for the Cloud-Power or Cloud-Spirit. The Earth is a conscious being and the globe is the form in which it manifests — behind the Cloud or Fire etc. there are Fire and Cloud Spirits of which the action of cloud or fire is a manifestation. This is an ancient knowledge which Science began to pooh-pooh, but anyone who passes the physical barrier can find it out for himself.
While I wrote this duologue the similes and images all but poured into me! And I marvelled where they came from! Evidently not from the intellect, for I was myself sceptical or rather intellectually unconvinced of the validity of what I wrote and was, as it were made to write it all — propelled by my irresistible groping intuitions. Besides, the images and symbols etc. came to me intermittently as though by flashes, if you know what I mean. This preface is only to ask you about their origin, that is, to know where the images come from, as also to ascertain what value they have here. Has it merely a poetical, that is beauty-value or is there truth-value also? What I mean is this (and you will please tell me if! understand rightly?) that expression per se has a world of its own and value as well, so that an idea or an image beautifully expressed need not be true in the last analysis, and may live by virtue of its beauty-value even if what is represented as true may be miles away from the real reality. But nevertheless — (though this might sound as paradox, but then paradoxes are often true) — the shock of delight arising out of the creation of anything beautiful but unreal, may come from some region of Truth — living Truth, may it not be so?
There are truths and there are transcriptions of the truths. The transcriptions may be accurate or may be free and imaginative. The truth behind a poetic creation is there on some plane or other, supraphysical generally — and from there the image too comes. So there is a transcription partly contributed from there, partly by the external mind’s faculty of imagination. Poetic imagination in the external mind is satisfied with beauty of idea and image only and the Ananda of it, but there is something behind it which supplies the Truth. When Shelley made the spirits of Nature speak, he was using his imagination, but there was something behind in him which felt and knew and believed in the truth of the thing he was expressing. Symbolic poems always come from a mystic region — the allegorical may come from the intellect, but often the allegory itself rests on a concealed symbol and then there is a mystic element.
Anyway please tell me where does the inspiration of such allegorical poems come from as I know it is not from the intellect. But does it come from any mystic region?
Am I right in assuming that this poem is somewhat more mystic that any I have yet written?
Yes. I shall have to read it again in detail before I can tell you how far and in what way.
I am superminding the letter on the supramental.
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About Savitri | B1C3-10 The New Sense (pp.29-31)