rabindranath tagore part 3

7/31/2019 Rabindranath Tagore Part 3

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RABINDRANATH TAGOREMY LIFE IN MY WORDS

Selected & Edited: Uma Das GuptaReview: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

Part 3

We should not ignore the difficulties. They must be faced. I myself think these willbe, someday or other, tackled by the idealists who are not shackled by the weightof old traditions, by things that are already dead, but which still cling to life.

Europe has got her science not as complementary to religion but as itssubstitute. Science is great, but it only affords us knowledge, power, efficiency,but no ideal of unity, no aspiration for the perfect it is non-human, impersonal,and therefore is like things that are inorganic, useful in many ways but useless asour food of life.

You have to realize that the whole world of outside the human world of this earthis dumb, the stars do not utter words, nor the planets and clouds and trees, thegreen grass and flowers. They are silent, the whole world, the greater part of itwhose expression is the expression of gesture it has no other meaning, and wethink it must have some deeper truth of existence. We dont ask rose to explainitself, to justify its existence, we dont ask, What is your philosophy of life or yourultimate meaning. We are satisfied with a rose as a rose, that is to say itcontains within itself a perfect harmony of its parts and its surroundings.

I believe that all human problems find their fundamental solution ineducation. And outside of my own vocation as a poet I have accepted this

responsibility to educate my people as much as lies in my individual powerto do so. I know that all evils, almost without exception, from which my landsuffers, are solely owing to the utter lack of education of the people.

Poverty, pestilence, communal fights and industrial backwardness make ourpath of life narrow and perilous owing to the meagerness of education.

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In ancient India, the men whose function was to make human mind more fertilewith living wealth of beauty and noble aspiration received their highest rewardsfrom the monarchs not necessarily in the spirit of patronage but that of a highresponsibility and cultural appreciation.

Personally I do not believe that Europe is occupied only with material things. Shemay have lost faith in religion, but not in humanity. Man, in his essential nature, isspiritual and can never remain solely material. If, however, we in the East merelyrealize Europe in this external aspect, we shall be seriously at fault. For inEurope the ideals of human activity are truly of the soul. They are not paralyzedby the shackles of spiritual injunctions. Their sanction lies in the heart of man andnot in something external to him. This freedom from the changeless, irrationalbondage of external regulation is a very big asset in modern Europe.

It is this attitude of mind in Europe which is essentially spiritual. For truespirituality always brings freedom with it. The freedom that Europe has achieved

today in action, in knowledge, in literature and in art, is a freedom from the rigidinsanity of matter. That freedom refuses to recognize any limit either to action orto knowledge. It is courageous enough to cross over the barriers of nature, andthe limitations of natural instincts; it never regrets immediate loss that may, ormay not, lead to gains in a far distant future.

They alone become entirely materialistic who are only half men, who cripple thenative majesty of the spirit before the blind reputation of unintelligent activities;who are niggardly in knowledge and palsied in action; who are insultingthemselves by setting up a meaningless ritualism in the place of true worship.

Men who live in the dread of the spirit of enquiry and lack courage to launch outin the adventure of truth can never achieve freedom in any department of life.Freedom is not for those who are not lovers of freedom and who only allow it astanding space in the porters vestibule for the sake of some temporary purpose,while worshipping in the inner shrine of their life, the spirit of blind obedience.

In India, what is needed more than anything else, is the broad mind which, onlybecause it is conscious of its own vigorous individuality is not afraid of acceptingtruth from all sources. Ram Mohan Roy developed the courage and capacity todiscriminate between things that are essential and those that are non-essential inthe culture which was his inheritance. This helped him to realize that truth cannever be foreign, that money and material may exclusively belong to the countrywhich produces them, but not knowledge, or ideas or immortal forms of art.

The ideal I have formed of the culture which should be universal in India hasbecome clear to me from the life of Ram Mohan Roy. I have come to feel that themind, which has been matured in the atmosphere of a profound knowledge of itsown country, and of the perfect thoughts that have been produced in that land, isready to accept and assimilate the cultures that come from foreign countries.

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When I look to my early days, it seems to me that unconsciously I have followedthe path of my Vedic ancestors, and was inspired by the tropical sky with itssuggestion of the uttermost Beyond.

This is what my creator has done for me. He has blessed me with the realization

that I am connected with him by a bond of mutual love. I do believe that it is Hewho provides all my pleasures, and He who embraces me in my agonies.

I believe in a spiritual world, not as anything separate from this world, but asits innermost truth. With the breath we draw, we must always feel this truth;that we are living in God. Born in this world, full of the mystery of the infinite,we cannot accept our existence as a momentary outburst of chance, driftingon the current of matter towards an eternal nowhere.

It has been said in our Upanishads that our mind and our words come awaybaffled from the Supreme Truth, but he who knows truth through the immediate

joy of his own soul is saved from all doubts and fears.

I believe that there is an ideal hovering over and permeating the earth an idealof that paradise which is not the mere outcome of fancy, but the ultimate reality inwhich all things are and towards which all things are moving. I believe that thisvision of paradise is to be seen in the sunlight, and the green of the earth, in theflowing streams, in the goodness of springtime, the repose of a winter morning, inthe beauty of a human face a and the wealth of human love. Everywhere in thisearth the spirit of paradise is awake and sending forth its voice. It reaches ourinner ears without our hearing it. It tunes our harp of life, urging us to send ouraspiration beyond the finite, as flowers send their perfume into the air and thebirds their songs.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragmentsby narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its wayinto the dreary desert sand of dead habit;Where the mind is led forward by Theeinto ever widening thought and action;

Into that heaven of freedom,My Father, let my country awake.

Review: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

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rabindranath tagore part 3

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