Question: What do you mean when you speak of going back to the world where the poem came from?

Sri Chinmoy: Spiritual Masters can be thieves of the first water. They just write down what has already been written. They can see it with their inner vision. Others also, if they are in tune, can do it once or twice in their life. Tagore and others have done it. Sometimes they can go to the dream world and get it. I have at times written lying down in my bed, reading the words on the wall. The lines are coming; they are all written there. In India I wrote a few Bengali poems like that. There are worlds — a world of literature — where everything is written.

But we are not thieves. An expression comes and you write it down. But you have to know there is a place where these thoughts, ideas, formulations and poetry lines are all coming from. This is especially true for songs and poetry. You just go there and take them. It is like plucking a mango. Or you may have to wait and then the mango falls right in your lap. Some writers go there and then the fruit drops and it becomes theirs.