Gurudev Tagore


By Vijay Phanshikar :
    “My soul is alight
     With your infinitude
    Of stars. 
     Your world has broken
     Upon me like a flood;
     The flowers of your garden
     Blossom in my body.
     The joy of life 
     That is everywhere
     Burns like an incense 
     In my heart.
     And the breath of all things
     Plays on my life
     As on a pipe of reeds ...”
- Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore
(Excerpts)

VERY few other expressions may equal the spiritual elevation as do these fine lines from Gurudev Tagore ! In these few words, he comes up with how the Divine reflects in his being -- internal and external ! What a wonderful bridge the poet establishes with the Universal One -- the singularity, the Atma ! Aham Brahmasmi - I am the Brahman ! This is the quintessence of this poetic expression.

 

 

The Brahma, the Universal One, showers upon me its presence in so many ways -- the infinitude of stars, the flowers of your garden; the joy of life ... everywhere burning like an incense in my heart; the breath of all things playing on my life as on a pipe of reeds ... ! In other words, the poet asserts that he is one with the Universal One. I am the Brahman ! I am Him ! Such a spiritual elevation cannot be made to happen -- it just happens, when the mind is without fear (from another Tagore poem), when there are no biases blocking one’s clear thinking, when there are no prides and prejudices to burden one’s soul, when the mind is extra-ordinarily quiet (as was said by sage Jiddu Krishnamurti).

 

To be sure, this happening within one’s sanctorum is integral to one’s inner journey to Satya The Ultimate Truth! Every sage has described this as the most wonderful experience -- Satyam - Shivam - Sundaram ( Truth that is Pious and Beautiful). For, when the Divine showers upon one’s being all Its blessings, when the Divine elevates one’s soul to the Immeasurable point, when the Divine sublimates one’s senses to the ethereal finest, one realises that there is no duality -- Dwait -- between the Atma and Parmatma ! This is the quintessence of this long Tagore poem -- with a power to add Divine touch even to an ordinary mortal’s understanding of the process of Adwait -- Singularity !