SECTION FIVE MODERN POETRY Contemporary English Poetry (1) I ADMIT I have not read as much of "modern" (contemporary) poetry as I should have—but the little I have is mostly of the same fundamental quality. It is very carefully written and versified, often recherché in thought and expression; it lacks only two things, the inspired phrase and inevitable word and the rhythm that keeps a poem for ever alive. Speech carefully studied and made as perfect as it can be without reaching to inspiration verse as good as verse can be without rising to inspired rhythm—there seem to be an extraordinary number of poets writing like thi

SECTION THREE POETIC RHYTHM AND TECHNIQUE Two Factors in Poetic Rhythm IF your purpose is to acquire not only metrical skill but the sense and the power of rhythm, to study the poets may do something, but not all. There are two factors in poetic rhythm,—there is the technique (the variation of movement without spoiling the fundamental structure of the metre, right management of vowel and consonantal assonances and dissonances, the masterful combination of the musical element of stress with the less obvious element of quantity, etc.), and there is the secret soul of rhythm which uses but exceeds these things. The first you can learn, if you read with your ear a

letter's of sa.3rd 263-.htm SECTION SEVEN APPRECIATION OF POETRY AND ART   Appreciation of Poetic Value I DO not know why your correspondent puts so much value on general understanding and acceptance. Really it is only the few that can be trusted to discern the true value of things in poetry and art and if the "general" run accept, it is usually because acceptance is sooner or later imposed or induced in their minds by the authority of the few and afterwards by the verdict of Time. There are exceptions, of course, of a wide spontaneous acceptance because something that is really good happens to suit a taste or a demand in the general mind of the moment. Poetic and artisti

  PLANES AND PARTS OF THE BEING         Higher Mind is one of the planes of the spiritual mind, the first and lowest of them; it is above the normal mental level. Inner mind is that which lies behind the surface mind (our ordinary mentality) and can only be directly experienced (apart from its vrittis in the surface mind such as philosophy, poetry, idealism, etc.) by sadhana, by breaking down the habit of being on the surface and by going deeper within.         Larger mind is a general term to cover the realms of mind which become our field whether by going within or widening into the cosmic consciousness.         The true mental being is not the

      GLOSSARY     abhyāsa    Practice. ādhāra (Adhar)   Vessel, receptacle—the system of mind, life and body considered as   a receptacle of the spiritual consciousness and force. ahaitukī bhakti   Devotion not depending on anything; absolute devotion. ājna cakra   Will centre. See cakra. anāhata   See cakra. ānanda (Ananda)   Bliss, delight—the divine or spiritual bliss. ānandamaya   Full of delight. anityamasukham   Transient and unhappy. antarātman (Antaratman)    Inner self, soul. anumantā (Anumanta)   The g

LOVE—BHAKTI—EMOTION  LOVE—BHAKTI—EMOTION       In the way of ahaitukī bhakti, everything can be made a means—poetry and music, for instance, become not merely poetry and music and not merely even an expression of Bhakti, but themselves a means of bringing the experience of love and Bhakti. Meditation itself becomes not an effort of mental concentration, but a flow of love and adoration and worship.            *                              *                                 *         The very object of Yoga is a change of consciousness—it is by getting a new consciousness or by unveiling the hidden consciousness of the true being within and progressively manifesting and

        SRI AUROBINDO       MORE LIGHTS ON YOGA           SRI  AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY   First Edition .. October, 1948   All Rights Reserved             Published by   Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry   Printed at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry   PRINTED IN INDIA          These are mostly extracts from letters written by Sri Aurobindo to his disciples in answer to their queries. Wherever it was possible every effort has been made to introduce the letter in full; for, the total beauty of a letter in its spontaneity has a char

   FAITH       Have faith in the Divine, in the Divine Grace, in the truth of the sadhana, in the eventual triumph of the spirit over its mental and vital and physical difficulties, in the Path and the Guru, in the experience of things other than are written in the philosophy of Haeckel or Huxley or Bertrand Russell, because if these things are not true, there is no meaning in Yoga.           *                              *                                 *         The abnormal abounds in this physical world, the supernormal is there also. In these matters, apart from any question of faith, any truly rational man with a free mind (not tied up like the rationalists or s

    COLOURS-SYMBOLS-VISIONS         The frequent seeing of lights such as those he writes of in his letter is usually a sign that the seer is not limited by his outward surface or waking consciousness but has a latent capacity (which can be perfected by training and practice) for entering into the experiences of the inner consciousness of which most people are unaware but which opens by the practice of Yoga. By this opening one becomes aware of subtle planes of experience and worlds of existence other than the material. For the spiritual life a still further opening is required into an inmost consciousness by which one becomes aware of the Self and Spirit, the Eternal and the Divine.

    CONDITIONS FOR SADHANA       Openness and, whenever needed, passivity, but to the highest consciousness, not to anything that comes.         Therefore, there must be a certain quiet vigilance even in the passivity. Otherwise there may be either wrong movements or inertia.             *                              *                                 *         Your former sadhana was mostly on the vital plane. The experiences of the vital plane are very interesting to the sadhak but they are mixed, i.e., not all linked with the higher Truth. A greater, purer and firmer basis for the sadhana has to be established—the psychic basis. For that reason all the old exp