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It is not surprising that the form Sri Chinmoy most frequently selects for this purpose is the aphorism-that compact fragment of truth which has been used from ancient times in its various applications as proverb, maxim, saying, adage, dictum, epigram and pensee. Succinct enough to avail itself of literary elements, such as metaphoric density, rhyme, assonance and parallelism, the aphorism disqualifies itself from reason's lengthy processes. As lyric poetry is founded upon the simple immediacy of feeling, so aphoristic poetry is founded upon intuition, or the spontaneous accession of truth. "Intuition," Croce confirms,

is the undifferentiated unity of the perception of the
real and of the simple image of the possible.[3]

 
Such intuition is often the end result of a personal experience which may be deliberately concealed from us by the poet. However, this silent context from which aphorism has sprung and which, in itself, would normally supply the content of much lyrical verse, does not play a significant part in our estimation of the universal truth of the poet's utterance. This fundamental difference between aphoristic poetry and lyric poetry, or between the poetry of statement and the poetry of search, is further explained by Dorothy Sayers:

... there are two kinds of poet: the one writes in order to find out what he feels, the other in order to tell what he knows. Both are concerned with personal experience; but the poetry of Search concentrates on the "gropings," whether or not they succeed in reaching any goal; the poet writes the diary of his journey as he goes along ... The poetry of Statement on the other hand, is not written till the journey is ended: it maps the true route from tentative beginning to triumphant arrival ... the poet is concerned with the truth he has discovered about things in general, not merely with the workings of his own mind.[4]