Gurudev Ke Saath

Author(s): Gurdial Mallikji, Pratap J Tolia, Sumitra P Toliya
Publisher: Vardhaman Bharati International Foundation

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however, after his vision of the oneness of Life, which he had in his youth, while watching the sunrise from the terrace of his ancestral house in Calcutta, that he grew quite conscious of his mission and message. As he put it, the hitherto slumbering and sealed fountain awakened to life and its water sprayed up and around in colour and in cadence. Thereafter, he sang "many a song in many a mood" but the ultimate meaning of every one of these songs "pointed to Thee."
Who is this "Thee" or "Thou" ? It was both a Person and Principle. It was an amalgam and apotheosis of the infinite and the finite. In the realization of this truth and his reorientation to it, the poet was helped not only by his inborn love of the beautiful in Nature, but also by the teachings of the sages of the Upanishads, which he found exemplified and embodied in the person of his great-souled father Maharishi Devendranath Tagore. To these influences were added later those of the devout Vaishnava poets and the God-intoxicated singers, the Bauls. His hero in life was Raja Ram Mohan Roy, rightly acclaimed as "the Maker of Modern India," as his Master was the Buddha. The cumulative effect of these several sources of impact and inspiration led him to evolve for himself a religion which he called "The Religion of Man." That is why he called his book of this name his last will and testament to humanity.
Such being the Poet's religion, it is no wonder that Rabindranath Tagore was deeply interested in all that concerns the evolution of Man, the Eternal. Art, Music, Science, Social Service and other allied instruments of the individual's evolution in the image of Perfection ("Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect") he laid under contribution in his varied literary work, extending over nearly seven decades. His twin institutions in Santiniketan and Sriniketan were intended to be an enlarged version of his vision of Man, ever moving towards the Eternal through his many-sided modes of creative expression, each perfumed with a touch of Truth. As man is not the final word in evolution, so his achievement, howsoever great, is also not the ultimate. "The best is yet to be," as Browning says. It is for this reason that he said, when he was once asked whom he considered to be the greatest artist, author, orator, poet, musician : "Nature hates superlatives. We can be sure of the great, but never of the greatest."
In this connection, it will not be out of place here to refer to some of his other "confessions," which he made in answering a questionnaire, sent out by the editor of a Bengali periodical many years ago to some representative writers and thinkers and leaders of the world. The characteristic he admired most in a man was "love of truth," while in a woman it was "love of creatures." His best quality, as his greatest failing, was "inconsistency." He was greatly annoyed by "spiritual arrogance." He would like to visit "all parts of the world." He held that dress does influence character "when we are conscious of it." He had no favourite motto, as he could not stick to any single one. The best souvereign in Europe, he said, was "the People."
Such then, were some of the characteristics and concepts of Rabindranath Tagore, the Man. They reveal him as a pilgrim to the ever-present and yet ever-receding Shrine of the Eternal, which is glimpsed now and again by every creative artist, be it in the field of literature or in any other sphere of life. Such a pilgrim's vision of the Eternal verity is catholic and comprehensive, a veritable symphony. This was reflected in his lifelong aspiration towards achieving some kind of "a completeness of life," through an integration of various outlooks, attitudes and activities. For only an integrated individual can become a confluence of the limited and the limitless, Time and the Timeless, Form and the Formless, the Near and the Far, his own self and the selves of others. Thus he lives for all and labours for the welfare of all, believing that self-fulfilment and not merely success, material or intellectual, is the be-all and end-all of life.
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