The imagination-bird is within our reach⁵³

If you want to have the inspiration to write a beautiful poem, just imagine a bird, any bird of your choice, right in front of you. Then let your imagination go a little further. Feel that the bird you saw for a few seconds right in front of your eyes has flown away. Your vision has improved to such an extent that you can see how far the bird has flown. Then imagine that the bird is now seated on a branch of a tree. Imagine that the bird is now flying from one branch to another, and it looks very, very beautiful when it is amidst the leaves.

When it is almost hidden by the leaves, please bring your consciousness back to your physical body. When you reached the bird with your eyes, you imagined the bird on a particular tree, amidst the leaves. Please feel that you yourself are on the branch, by the side of the bird. Now you are the soul-bird.

If the bird sees your physical body, any human body, it may fly away. But when it sees your soul-bird, it is completely astonished at how beautiful your soul-bird is. The physical bird, the earthly bird, is no match for your soul-bird. Then the bird begs you to make it as beautiful as your own soul-bird, because your soul-bird is so divine, so beautiful, so pure. At that time you start feeding the bird with your own soul and make it very, very beautiful and very soulful. Then you come back to your physical body.

If you can do everything that I am saying, lovingly, seriously and faithfully, then you will be able to compose a very, very beautiful poem. Even if you have written many unsatisfactory poems, God will give you another chance, another capacity, since you have been begging Him for so many years to grant you the capacity. At that time you will be able to command any bird from any place to come right in front of you. Then you look at the bird, and a beautiful poem will come to you.

In my case, I do not need to beg for a bird to be seated in front of me. I do not imagine; for just three or four seconds I enter into the world of poetry. There, everything is written. Like a thief, I bring it to this world and write it down. When I was fourteen years old, I wrote quite a few poems while lying down and resting. I did not need the electric light to see. In the inner world I saw Bengali words, line by line, right in front of me, while I was lying on my side, and I copied them. I thought, “Nobody has claimed them,” so I myself wrote down those poems.

Some of my most significant poems I wrote like that, in 1946 or 1947. They were already written very beautifully in the inner world. It is absolutely true! I just copied them. Then they became my poems.

I read that this has happened in some other cases. Other people also have done it. Tagore spoke about it. In my case, at least ten poems I have written like this. The words were already written in the inner world, and I copied them. I set them to music, after many, many years, in America.

Imagination! We can play with imagination. The imagination-bird is within our reach. When we become a little bit agitated or restless, that bird is so smart — it hides! But when we are calm and quiet, at that time the little imagination-bird surrenders, because it sees that our silence and our peace of mind is infinitely stronger. Then it comes and helps us in every way.