UNDERGRADUATE B. A. Honours. SUBJECT: English Language & Prose TOPIC: The Invitation by Sri Aurobindo LESSON MAP: 27:15 Duration:

Transcription

1 UNDERGRADUATE B. A. Honours SUBJECT: English Language & Prose TOPIC: The Invitation by Sri Aurobindo LESSON MAP: 27:15 Duration:

2 The Invitation Introduction to the Poem "The Invitation" is a poem written by Sri Aurobindo during in Alipore jail. It is an intense and uplifting collection of musings from a person who was a revolutionary, fighting for the freedom of India, and then an Enlightened Being. Here, Sri Aurobindo gives voice to his own inner feelings by inventing a narrator, a first person narrator to be precise. To put the poem in a nutshell, the poet- narrator invites readers to attain an inner freedom that does not depend on any other beyond the Self, an invitation to embrace solitude, and an invitation to experience free and peaceful existence. The poet gives an open invitation to anyone to go with him as he climbs up the hill, to the moorland and the rough wind and the weather beat around him. He invites anyone to wade through the brook and tramp through the snow because he dwells not in the petty circle of cities cramped by doors and walls but where God exists in blue in the welkin. Though the wind and the storm rebel against him, he enjoys his solitude and made misadventure his friend. Therefore he asks anyone to come and live with him freely in the wind- swept uplands. He is proud that he has the spirit of freedom and pride and feels that he is the lord of tempest and mountain. And thus, one who joins him in his kingdom and walks by his side must be stark and a kinsman to danger. Background of the Poem The Invitation was composed in Alipore Jail in Aurobindo calls his days in prison as a year s living in an ashram or a hermitage. He describes attaining an inner freedom that does not depend on others, of embracing solitude and of tasting peace. This poem is better understood in the light of history. As readers it becomes important that we contextualize the poem with a backdrop of the personal life of Sri Aurobindo and collective life of Indians in the bondage under the British rule. Sri Aurobindo had revelatory visions of Krishna while in Alipore Jail, and instead of feeling jailed he miraculously felt deep inner freedom and had the experience that the divine is manifest in one and all. It would not be wrong to say that this period was a turning point in Sri Aurobindo s life and his life as a seer gradually unfurled to bloom after this testing time in prison.

3 About the Poet Sri Aurobindo ranks among the greatest personalities of modern India. He is a multi- faceted genius a political revolutionary, social reformer, historian, educationist, philosopher, yogi and above all, a man of letters. He is a journalist, editor, literary critic, linguist, translator, essayist, short story writer, dramatist and more than all of these, a great poet. He falls into the exclusive category of poet- seers who have achieved the highest realisations and have endeavoured to share that experience with the rest of humankind. The teachings and very utterances that spiritual masters of this calibre offer to the world come from the most sublime realms of consciousness that human beings can attain to. Their poetry transcends the page to become mantra, an invocation to the transcendental consciousness. Sri Aurobindo, Indian nationalist, poet, philosopher and Spiritual Guru was born in Calcutta on 15th August Sri Aurobindo spent his formative years in England studying at St Paul s and Trinity College where he excelled in the study of Literature and the Classics. In 1892 he returned to India where he became closely involved in the Indian independence movement; he was a natural leader and one of the most radical nationalist politicians. Because of his radicalism, in 1908 Sri Aurobindo was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a bomb plot and was remanded in Alipore jail. It was here in jail that Sri Aurobindo had significant spiritual experiences; he became aware of a divine inner guidance and also realised the omnipresence of God even in a darkened prison cell. Later, he was released without charge. However this experience changed Sri Aurobindo s outlook. Henceforth he retired from politics and focused his energies on spirituality. Sri Aurobindo travelled to Pondicherry, South India where he could practise yoga undisturbed. In 1914 he was joined by a French woman, Mira Richards who would later became known as the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Together they founded Sri Aurobindo ashram, which began to attract disciples drawn to their dynamic reinterpretation of yoga. His main works were The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, Essays on the Gita and Savitri. Savitri was an epic work of poetry that he worked on for over 20 years. Sri Aurobindo did not negate the world like Indian yogis of the past. Instead Sri Aurobindo affirmed that all life is Yoga; through a conscious aspiration it is possible for man to evolve into a higher consciousness a consciousness of

4 truth and inner harmony. Sri Aurobindo called this new consciousness the Supramental. For over 40 years, Sri Aurobindo worked tirelessly for his vision of a divine life on earth. Through his writings and poetry he left a legacy which reflected his hopes of a golden future for humanity. Sri Aurobindo entered mahasamadhi on Dec 5th, Meaning and Form of the poem This is one of the Sri Aurobindo s short poems which can awaken one to the true love of poetry. The poem is an invitation to experience the narrator s experience of freedom and largesse in existence. In the first stanza of Invitation, the poet speaks about a journey uphill. There are those geo- physical words employed by the poet to describe the journey, but they sound English, which can be attributed to Sri Aurobindo s European residence and education; the word moorlands which is indicative of the uncultivated countryside and the idea of Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow create an English influence upon the Indian emotion of the up- climb. The poet wants others to be a party to the ascension and extends an invitation in verse when he says, Who will come with me? Who will climb with me? Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow? In the above lines Who will come with me? Who will climb with me? it is noteworthy that both of the action words or verbs in this line begin with the c sound. The first two stanzas are particularly loaded with a Wordsworth- ian sort of romanticism a love for nature and the countryside, which are in stark contrast to the hustle- bustle of city life. In this poem, Sri Aurobindo goes ahead to move us from the outer landscape to the inner nature and a state of desirable freedom. The poet- narrator makes his carefree state of existence very clear by contrasting it with city life and its limitedness when he says Not in the petty circles of cities / Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell; The phrase petty circle of cities has a repetition of the sounds of t and c and the phrase amounts to concluding that city life is binding and circular or rather limited. The next line opens with the c and the poet says that he is beyond the cramped doors and walls, the sounds of d repeats in this line in the words doors and dwell. A note of distinction between the poet and the

5 drabness of city life is made more obvious and emphatic when the poet narrator says your doors and your walls. He sees himself as distinct and there is a sort of psychoanalytic otherness that the poet- narrator establishes by emphasizing on the word your. He describes his natural state of existence when he says Over me God is blue in the welkin/ Against me the wind and the storm rebel. The choice of the literary word welkin for sky, as being the abode of God, literally transforms the setting of the poem from the mundane to the celestial spheres. There is an aura of mystery when the poet- narrator says that he plays with solitude in his own region and that he has befriended misadventure. Perhaps he implies that to those who are trapped in the humdrum life his situation would translate to a misadventure, but for him there is a largesse and freedom in his situation. Once again, there is a repetition as in the first stanza, the poet further extends the invitation in the following lines Who would live largely? Who would live freely? Here to the wind- swept uplands ascend. Perhaps the word wind- swept is indicative of certain calmness devoid of turmoil. In the last stanza the poet- narrator reveals the prominent attributes of his entity and also enlists the essential pre- requisites for those who wish to accept his invitation. He calls himself the lord of the tempest and the mountain and says that he is the Spirit of freedom and pride. The persona that Sri Aurobindo creates is powerful and embodies the spirit of freedom and pride; here the spirit is personified with the capitalization of the s. The word pride in association with freedom should not be read in a derogatory manner but rather as a dimension of self respect. Pride is sinful in the English context but here the narrator is perhaps trying to convey an Indian expression like atma- samman in the foreign language, and has few words as equal substitutes. In the end the poet says that the ones who accept the invitation must be stark and a kinsman to danger indicative of the strength required to accept the invitation and to ascend upwards to share the poet- narrator s experience. Structure and Style

6 Sri Aurobindo is a skillful craftsman in the use of blank verse and felicity in poetic expression. His grand, mantric and mystic style in his poetic works is ample testimony of his stupendous achievements. Throughout his life Sri Aurobindo strove for a poetry which was loyal to the inherent and natural laws of metre, rhythm and rhyme, yet was not bound by them in any immutable or rigid way. Sri Aurobindo studied metre extensively and composed many poems that followed new and previously unexplored schemes of metre in the English language. He devised his own set of laws for the proper use and purpose of metre. In his sublime essay On Quantitative Metre he exposes his theories, arguing that metre and poetic rhythm are not things to be caught in fixed, hard- and- fast rules of quantity, but should rather be subtle, flexible and willing to bend to the suggestions of the inner ear. He felt strongly that metre should serve the poetic inspiration by heightening and sublimating it, not vice versa by dictating and governing the poetic speech. Invitation is a short mystical poem in four lyrical stanzas with the rhyme scheme abcb. The atmosphere that the words create is dreamy, almost fairytale like and unfelt, unknown in reality or not wholly comprehendible to our own, busy self- absorbed mechanical routine of life. The effect of this poem is that one can sense a calling or beckoning and one knows that bright promises are inherent in the call. The reader knows that there are rewards for accepting the invitation. The mystical elements used in the poem, can be understood if we understand Sri Aurobindo s elucidation in one of his letters with an illustration from his poetry which needs to be essentially understood - as one delves into the mysticism inherent in his poetry which nonetheless speaks for itself: A mystic poem may explain itself or a general idea may emerge from it, but it is the vision that is important or what one can get from it by intuitive feeling, not the explanation or idea. Critical Appreciation The poem becomes relevant to each of us because we live in such suffocative cities where we don t tend to see the power of blowing wind. And, if, rarely sometimes, we don t feel like going out running when the weather is bad, particularly now since it is winter, but wild weather has a special kind of power which can be invigorating. Sri Chinmoy commented that often children

7 will get a lot of joy when the wind blows powerfully, and that the wind reminds us of the transient nature of life. We like to have everything ordered and comfortable, but the wind ruins our plans. Like the poem, it beckons us to a greater and more liberated experience of life. If we can stop clinging to comfort, then we can really enjoy ourselves. The poem speaks about the wildness of life. Many a time, we pass through such stormy winds of life we start praying to God, to let us escape them and ease our situation. Despite our best efforts, when nothing happens, we realize that true peace comes when we finally surrender to the situation, because God always knows what is best for us, even if our mind doesn't care for it. The betterment of the soul always takes precedence over the crying of the stupid mind. The message of this poem is absolutely true. The more difficult things get, the more we need to dive within and rely on God to carry us through. Adversity forces our eyes wide open, and it's absolutely true. It doesn't feel good at the time, but it forces us to call on our inner reserves which help us to expand ourselves.