Rabindranath Tagore’s spiritual vision is embodied in all of his work--novels, plays, and paintings--but especially in his poetry. He had the ability to speak to people of many backgrounds and spiritualities in simple ways. His verse is not difficult to understand or to enter into. However, all of his writing is, as he himself put it, filled “with the ancient spirit of India as revealed in our sacred texts and manifested in the life of today” (Sadhana, p. vii). There is a great deal of meaning behind some of his simple phrasings of love, devotion, and struggle for personal understanding.

The inner-seeking spirituality of India infused all of Tagore’s writing. He wrote in many genres of the deep religious milieu of Hinduism. This passage from his novel The Home and the World, for instance, offers a domesticated version of the devotion so common in the spiritual feelings and actions of the Indian people:

I know, from my childhood’s experience, how devotion is beauty itself, in its inner aspect. When my mother arranged the different fruits, carefully peeled by her own loving hands, on the white stone plate, and gently waved her fan to drive away the flies while my father sat down to his meals, her service would lose itself in a beauty which passed beyond outward forms. Even in my infancy I could feel its power. It transcended all debates, or doubts, or calculations: it was pure music.

The values and core beliefs of the Hindu scriptures permeated his work. These core beliefs include:

· The universe in which we live is a partial manifestation of the Infinite Spirit
· There is no hard and fast line between nature and humankind or between humankind and God. Evil and suffering are not absolute realities, but are only the temporary expedients of the evolving Spirit.
· The Absolute Spirit is all ineffable joy and love.
· True knowledge is that which perceives the unity of all things in God.
· The emancipation of humankind consists in our absolute self-surrender in service and love.

Tagore: The Mystic Poets, preface by Swami Adiswarananda (Woodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2004) 11-13.st

Used with permission of Skylight Paths Publishing.

To purchase a copy of Tagore: The Mystic Poets visit Sacred Path Books &
Art. This link is provided as a service to explorefaith.org visitors and
registered users.
(Woodstock, Vermon

ock, Veblishing, 2004.) 36-37.