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Thursday, May 9, 2013
Saturday, August 27, 2011Literature
Essay
Spiritualism in Tagore's Poetry Helal Uddin Ahmed
Rabindranath Tagore's spiritual outlook and humanism were derived from man, nature and Brahma or God. He held the view that the route to spiritual development was from 'body to society, from society to totality and from totality to the spiritual domain'. In this way, the melody of the soul was intertwined with the Universal power. But what was required for this inter-mingling was connecting the world of nature with that of human beings. To Tagore, the whole human body appeared to be reverberating with the touch of light, air, affection, love, bliss, joy and electricity, as if embedded in a supernatural flute. Although he might have been influenced by the romantic movements of the time, the Brahma Samaj, the Bauls, Sufism or the Vedanta philosophy of Upanishads, those views were in some respects Tagore's very own. We can very well comprehend how his spirit was liberated by connecting with the universe, the nature and the environment which surrounded him, by looking at the following lines:
"Where He has given himself up through his infinite mirth and youthfulness, there is no dearth of affluence there, no limit to variety, and the riches are unending. There, the sky is lit in a thousand directions wearing the girdles of stars; there, beauty surfaces in so many new forms, the gushing of the spirit never stops."
By connecting with our environment in this manner, our self-consciousness becomes sweeter, deeper and brighter. The man within us grows into a fuller entity. Our soul seems to mingle with His colours and flavour. Rabindranath had identified this phenomenon as devotion. He said, "The poet's task is to ignite this awareness in the consciousness of man, to transform indifference into a newer zeal. That poet is great in the eyes of humans who diffuses human hearts with the attributes of constancy,