BY K. H. GANDHI

Some years ago, in a series of illuminating essays, Sri Aurobindo discussed the nature and evolution of poetry. As the most significant poetic trend in recent times he picked out the attempt to cast off the more externalised forms of expression and to seek for a pure and authentic intuitive language, to bring forth the living truths of the inmost spiritual being, to reveal its light and vision, not in the obscuring and encrusting speech of the surface mind, but in the inspired and revelatory accent of Spirit itself. This attempt has not always been successful. In continental and English poetry it has not gone beyond a search for some inner meaning of the sensational and emotional experience and its formulation in a new kind of intuitivised expression. A few Irish and Indian poets have been able to go further and have succeeded in giving utterance to a deeper psychic and spiritual feeling and vision in a more authentically intuitive language. The secret motive force behind all these attempts, the fundamental endeavour of the Time Spirit, as Sri Aurobindo calls it, has been to break open the doors of our luminous inner being and to express its truth, beauty and light in its own rhythmic terms. This secret urge, however, finds its full voice in only a few (not always well-known) poets; the rest find it difficult to cast off the old habits of poetic speech and either totally fail to respond to the urge or succeed only in making small beginnings.

All those who are acquainted with the recent poetry seeking this inward turn will not take long to find that a small book lately published–"The Secret Splendour"* by K. D. Sethna–marks a more brilliant disclosure of the unfolding spirit and also greater mastery over its native tones than before. This book is all the more remarkable because the stamp of the pure intuitive word is evident, not in a few lines or a few poems here and there but in every poem: each line of it is pregnant with a subtle, luminous, intense inspiration which seems to come from some hidden depth or height of the being.

There are several ranges of our inner self, each with its characteristic movements, forms and forces which express themselves intuitively through poetry when an opening is made to them. Broadly speaking, we can say that our inner being is composed of three parts. Firstly, a luminous subliminal being behind each aspect of our surface personality–the inner mind, the inner vital and the subtle physical; secondly, an inmost psychic being or soul behind these inner parts; and thirdly, the higher planes of the spiritual consciousness posited in Yogic psychology above the mind-level. Most of the spiritual poetry so far has drawn its inspiration either from the luminous subliminal regions or from the psychic. There hardly exists any poetry derived from the spiritual planes above the mind except from their lowest levels. Poetry drawing its inspiration from this source has been termed by Sri Aurobindo "Overhead Poetry", and its highest characteristics are a language charged with a profound and vast sense of spiritual vision and experience, an intense absoluteness of expression that is sweepingly powerful yet perfectly poised, and an unfathomable rhythmic movement carrying with it overtones and undertones of luminous suggestion. To write "overhead" poetry is an extremely difficult thing, its highest pitch so difficult and rare that any poet successfully bringing or bearing its authentic inspiration would be worthy of a high status among poets and his work must be hailed as a new and momentous landmark in the history of poetic development. Though all the poems in this book are not derived from the "overhead" source yet there are a sufficient number of them which unmistakably embody the "overhead" inspiration and are surcharged with an intense and unfathomable spiritual feeling, vision and force not yet evident in the current poetic literature. This entitles Mr. Sethna to the rare distinction of an innovator in the field of poetry. In his work we confront the splendour of a new age of art.

The poet expresses his inspiration, overhead or otherwise, in many veins; sometimes in a strain of subtle suggestive delicacy as in

sometimes in an air of haunting exquisite mystery:

But his power is more characteristically revealed in lines which suggest an atmosphere surcharged with a subtle luminous wideness and intensity an amplitude of visionary force:

or

or else,

This power reaches its height in various poems–in lines like

Perhaps the most perfect example of the "overhead" style sustained in the topmost peaks is "Gnosis"–an extraordinary poem which has for its very theme the soar of the mystic consciousness, hushed and entranced, to those supreme heights:

The compactness and high severity of the poet’s speech is clearly noticeable in all his poems. He has a remarkable way of achieving the highest intensity by compressing not only a particular idea in a few words, but also various shades of significance in a single phrase. Mark the force of the following lines taken from different poems:

Mr. Sethna seems to be essentially a spiritual seeker. His primary aim is to aspire for a contact with the Divine and not to remain satisfied with being merely a poet. To him his pursuit of poetry is justified only if it leads him further in his Godward aspiration. His "Ultima" expresses the idea beautifully:

The same idea takes another form in "Exile":

And also in "Grace"

The poet’s approach to the Divine is through love but his love does not express itself in a profuse lyrical outburst. He prefers to express his emotion in a few significant words as he feels the utter futility of mere words:

Instead of indulging in "ineffectual words" he chooses to shape his love to a quiet consecration:

It is not that the poet lacks keen susceptibility to earth’s beauty-

But this outward beauty does not satisfy his soul because in it

Dawn noon, evening, night, all have a strong fascination for the poet and this he sometimes expresses in lines of extreme felicity:

or

or

But here too his enchantment with outward beauty lures him inward to the mystery of divine beauty. Under the spell of the dawn, for example, he feels:

He invariably turns the outward facts of Nature into symbols of inward mystery ever present at the heart of things. Night, for which the poet has peculiar attraction, becomes for him a sanctuary of the Spirit:

It turns into a symbol of the spiritual silence which precedes the fullness divine revelation:

To understand Mr. Sethna’s poetry we must go beyond mere intellectual judgment. We must receive its impact inwardly, by spiritual feeling. The thing to be appreciated is so subtle and occult at times that it escapes all attempts at analysis. This may create a certain difficulty for the reader, but no literary innovator makes facile reading. Mr. Sethna calls for a sleep brooding attention on our part, no matter how brief his statement may be.

The smallest poem in the book is about the greatest living man on earth–Sri Aurobindo. Mr. Sethna has paid the highest possible tributes to this mighty soul in his profound, significant, highly-compressed vision evoking manner:

Lines like these are a fit offering to the Master, because they bear out Sri Aurobindo’s own prophecy that the future poetry will shape its utterance in the language of a higher illumined and intuitive mind "swallowing up the intellectual tones into the closeness and identities of a supra-intellectual light and Ananda."

* Published by the Author, Hamilton Villa, Nepean Sea Road, Bombay -Price: Rs.2/8.

BACK