(Letter to Mother from Satprem)
Pondicherry
All artistic creation is born of a question, a conflict, a discord with oneself, mankind or the cosmos. What painter, what poet, what writer has not wrenched from this conflict the best of his art, from Michelangelo to Goya, from Van Gogh to Rodin, from Villon to Rimbaud, Baudelaire or Dostoevski? And the work of art - the painting, novel or poem - is a harmony torn from this disharmony, a conquest over some chaos, a response to a question posed by man - a metamorphosis.
Artistic creation relies upon that which is most unique in man, most singular with respect to others, and it is through this singular uniqueness that the artist achieves his metamorphosis, his re-creation of the world; it is through this that he seeks to commune with others, himself and the world.
Now, Yoga seeks to eliminate conflict, problems or questions. Man has to forget all this, to cease being a question.
So when an answer has been given to every question, what place remains for the work of art? When all is metamorphosized through Transcendence, what place remains for artistic metamorphosis? When all is supreme harmony, can this harmony be expressed otherwise than through silence, a smile, a radiance or 'inspired' poetry - of which Sri Aurobindo is the sole example; even so, his poetry is not drawn from the human level, it surpasses the human, it issues from elsewhere.
Must artistic creation cease being human, then; must it cease relying upon the human? - which would then mean having to reject so many undeniably great painters, poets or writers? Must one wait to be open to the supramental planes of consciousness before being able to reconcile (assuming such reconciliation is possible) yoga and artistic creation? And, until then, smother all that sustains the creative elan, i.e. the individual, the conflict, that part of oneself which every creator feels to be the purest human part? Must one extinguish in oneself this play of light and shadow from which art derives its highest accents?
Signed: Bernard
January (?) 1956
(Letter to Mother from Satprem)
Pondicherry
Mother, I need to unburden myself of all that is wringing my heart, and if the Divine exists somewhere, it is to him that I would like to express my profound disgust. For all this is profoundly scandalous, absurd and revolting. I know that the external world is absurd and that men live in it vainly; but the world of the Ashram is no less absurd, no less vain. 'Someone' is making fun of us, 'someone' is deceiving us - for if truly there is some witness to this tragi-comedy and if this whole world is his 'game,' it is a cruel game and he is a cheater, for he has all the cards in his hand and he pretends to make us play a game in which we are inevitably the losers - a game we cannot play, for we are helpless miserable, without strength, without light.
All our efforts are vain and sadly ridiculous. At each instant we must begin everything anew, one step seems to lead us forward another to draw us back. We desperately turn in circles and sometimes, in our dizziness, we believe we glimpse lights, but these are only the little, dancing lights of our own fatigue, our own weakness. There is no victory, there are only moments of respite. Meditation brings calm and peace, of course, but so does sleep. We are all seeking release, in love, in opium, in action, in war or in power - or in Yoga; but one means is just as vain as the other. There is no real solution, there are only more or less effective ways of forgetting for an hour, or a day, that we are men alone and helpless.
It is quite possible, even quite probable, that in another hour or another day, I may feel quite the contrary of what I now write. But the person I am tomorrow does not negate he who I am today, it only makes him more absurd, more unbearably absurd. The one who I am right now, for an hour perhaps, needs to cry out his disgust with this nameless farce. We are puppets, fools, and I am ready to admit that everything is just a state of consciousness - but it is still a fool's state of consciousness. Tomorrow's puppet who might ask for grace from the divine, and believe in him, will still be a puppet, a pacified and resigned puppet - but a marionette no less absurd playing a game no less absurd. I understand those who go about planting dynamite everywhere; if they seek death, it is because they desperately wanted to live but found it impossible to live. One cannot live, one can only flee this intolerable existence in one way or another. Mother, it is impossible for a man to look at himself straight in the face in a completely lucid way for more than five minutes - IF HE DID, HE WOULD KILL HIMSELF ... SO I wonder if the divine - if he exists - has ever known the suffering of mankind. If he exists, why doesn't he give men the strength to break out of this 'Magic Circle' in which they keep turning like prisoners in a cell. Twelve years ago, when I was twenty, I was turning in circles in a prison cell in Bordeaux,' awaiting some execution or other - but I am still this same prisoner. If I have advanced during these twelve years, it is in despair, in misery. All this is outrageous, scandalous, should the divine exist.
1. Satprem was arrested by the Gestapo in Bordeaux in 1943 for resisting the German occupation. He was later sent to Buchenwald and Mauthausen.
Leave the Ashram? - But the rest of the world is just as absurd. It is man who is absurd, and god - if he exists - is a pure disgrace. Mother, I am SCANDALIZED, and I feel within me the rebellion and despair of all men who surely have not deserved all this.
Signed: Bernard
@
ISBN 2-902776-33-0
Information on ordering M o t h e r's A g e n d a in book form