Poetry and music come from the inner being

SRI AUROBINDO

Letters on Yoga Volume 1 Section Nine

I suppose I have had myself an even more completely European education than you, and I have had too my period of agnostic denial, but from the moment I looked at these things I could never take the attitude of doubt and disbelief which was for so long fashionable in Europe. Abnormal, otherwise supraphysical experiences and powers, occult or yogic, have always seemed to me something perfectly natural and credible. Consciousness in its very nature could not be limited by the ordinary physical human-animal consciousness, it must have other ranges. Yogic or occult powers are no more supernatural or incredible than is supernatural or incredible the power to write a great poem or compose great music; few people can do it, as things are, – not even one in a million; for poetry and music come from the inner being and to write or to compose true and great things one has to have the passage clear between the outer mind and something in the inner being. That is why you got the poetic power as soon as you began yoga, – yogic force made the passage clear. It is the same with yogic consciousness and its powers; the thing is to get the passage clear, – for they are already within you. Of course, the first thing is to believe, aspire and, with the true urge within, make the endeavour.