SACCS-logo
SACCS-logo


WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

To be inspired

24 August 1955

Sweet Mother, when can we say that a poet is inspired?

Why shouldn't he be?

Then he doesn't think when he is writing a poem?

Doesn't think? That means...?

It comes from above!

It's not that. You mean: when do we say that a poet is inspired? Usually we say that a poet is inspired when he receives inspirations. (Laughter)

What you mean but don't say... it's those who go beyond thought, silence their thoughts, those who have an absolutely silent and immobile mind, who open to inner regions and write almost automatically what comes to them from above. That's what you meant but didn't say. But that's quite a different thing, and it happens once in a thousand years. It's not a frequent phenomenon. First of all one must be a yogi to be able to do all that. But an inspired poet, as we call him... that's something absolutely different. All men of some genius, that is, those who have an opening upon a world slightly higher than the ordinary mind, are called "inspired". One who makes some discoveries is also inspired. Each time one is in contact with something a little higher than the ordinary human field, one is inspired. So when one is not altogether limited by the ordinary consciousness [old p. 281]one receives inspirations from above; the source of his production is higher than the ordinary mental consciousness.