“The most important lesson that man can learn from his life is not that
there’s pain in this world, … but it is possible for him to transmute it into joy.”
Intro:
Rabindranath Tagore born in 1861 was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
To fully grasp his stature, his poems inspired the national anthems of three countries, India,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He was a polymath, a poet, musician, novelist, essayist, playwright,
educator and visual artist. It was his humanism that was a huge influence around the world.
He travelled extensively, from Japan to Peru, from the US to Europe. He died in
1941. Today he’s the most important figure in Bengali literature, language and music.
In this video I discuss Tagore’s philosophy, east versus west, art versus materialism,
spiritually vs work and more. I will tell you about one of his best short stories. Finally
his message on how to live your life free from consumerism. And I will read one os his poems.
Humanism vs nationalism
Tagore agreed with Gandhi that India should be free from colonialism, but Tagore was
strongly against nationalism. Tagore extensively wrote about the rise of nationalism in Japan and
he predicted that it would lead to disaster at home and abroad. He saw nationalism as a kind
of madness that always resulted in wars. The Two World Wars, both fuelled by nationalism in Europe
and Asia. For Tagore, nation-states were formed as a war machine to expand their control and
territories, so he warned against the fascistic tendencies of nation-states that they only care
about their own people. A nation-state doesn't care if people on the other side of the border
experience famine, starvation or destroyed by diseases. It only cares about its own selfish
interest. Today a good example is food waste in some countries and starvation in other countries.
Quote: “Because the material world is the world of quantity, where resources are
limited and victory waits for those who have superior facility in the weapons, therefore
success in the path of progress for one group most often runs parallel to defeat another.”
Tagore also believed in universal humanism. He says: “… we have our greatest delight when we
realize ourselves in others and this is the definition of love.” For him every
human civilisation, like in China, India, Persia, Greece, Egypt and more were like
peaks that are attached to the same hill. Humanity. Tagore says liberated humans are
those who think beyond their national borders. Here is a quote, “… men are so closely knit,
that when you strike others the blow comes back to yourself.” But nationalism makes us selfish,
greedy, and blind to those outside our own borders. Being selfless is an immense
economic risk in today’s world. But once you go beyond greed, you find happiness.
According to Tagore, while alive, we are connected to all humans. Only in death, we
find ourselves alone. For him the meaning of life is to love everyone, no matter what nationality.
Rationality vs Art Tagore was also a critique
of rationalism. Somewhat similar to Dostoevsky in that modern rationality distorts as well as
dehumanise people. Tagore thought modern man was like a crazy distorted giraffe whose head touched
the clouds with illusion of power and material success while its heart was stuck down below
unhappy and unfulfilled. Knowledge and efficiency are like hotels, Tagore says. It’s clean and nice
but the host is missing. To be spiritually liberated, education was crucial for him,
but a rigid coercive education system could also break a person’s spirits. He argued that education
should be a process of self-discovery that allows people to be greater than they are themselves.
Tagore believed since intellect is the same for all humans and science as a
product of human intellect reduces everything to prototypes, species,
numbers and statistics. The only way to truly understand other people as unique human being,
we have to turn to art and stories. Why? Because art and stories turn all creatures
into unique characters, each individual with unique emotions. It gives them humanity while
science simply depict people as numbers and statistics or citizen of a nation.
He also pointed out your intelligence belongs to others, i.e. to provide food and security
for your family, boss and government. Brilliant scientist like Einstein helped create the most
powerful bomb for the United States government. Alfred Nobel created dynamite. So your intellect
can destroy the whole world. So intelligence and science can be equally or more destructive than
helpful. So to truly understand others, we have to return to art and stories.
East vs West Western humanism originated from a
Christian belief that all believers were equal. But in 18th century the Enlightenment replaced
god with humans that all rational beings as equal. In fact western science relies on a single truth,
single theory and single best answer to every problem. Two answers to one problem is often
problematic. One has to be better than the other. Two theories can't coexist. One has to be wrong.
Tagore understood this single-mindedness of western philosophy. But what interested
Tagore was that the westerners were seeking truth outside, while Indians were seeking truth inside
through meditation. He found problem in both ways of thinking. He was critical of the west for going
too far in exploiting the world, in the process destroying nature as well as other cultures.
He was also critical of Indians for being too inactive, meditating inside a temple.
The west seeking one answer to everything and the east is chasing answer inside each individual.
Tagore believed the west could learn from the east to be more self-reflective,
contemplative and meditative, while the east could learn from the west that active work, creativity
and material endeavours, too, can give life a meaning. In the 2nd half of the 20th century
many western hippies found themselves in India for some spiritual guidance. Some, like Steve
jobs used their Indian experience to become better capitalists. So Tagore wanted a dialogue between
cultures. He lamented the west’s arrogance and selfishness and east’s aloofness and passivity.
Human vs Nature Tagore says every great civilization has
solved a great problem. Western civilisation’s challenge was to free us from nature and unite
the whole world. He says, quote: 'The West seems to take a pride in thinking that it is subduing
nature, as if we were living in a hostile world where we have to wrest everything we want from
an unwilling and alien arrangement of things.' For Indians, however, humans come from nature
and there is no need for an aggressive approach to control nature. But to be in harmony with nature.
West’s approach to control nature stems from Christian notion that we have come from the
garden of Eden into this ugly and wild place called earth. So humans don't belong here.
As a result nature is seen as ugly, dirty and in need of a clean-up.
To give an example of this separation between the Christians and others,
the colonial English in India had the same feeling about their colonies. They were there
just to extract wealth, precious commodities like tea, spices, textile etc and then go home. They
didn't consider Indians as their equals, so didn't mingle with them. The same in Africa, America and
Australia. Europeans only settled in places where they outnumbered the locals. Also Most settlers
in America and Australia were the ones who were pushed out of Europe for their religious beliefs
or criminal conviction. But in India they never felt at home. This unfortunately put man against
nature on the one hand, and Christians against non-believers on the other. To the extent that
it dehumanised others so that killing, exploiting, starving, or enslaving them was considered totally
fine by Christian standards. Why? Because for colonists, Europe still resembled a bit of the
Garden of Eden while the rest of the world as ugly and wild and non-believers, sinners and bestial.
In his article titled “East and West” Tagore relates an anecdote about a Swedish man choosing
to live among the poor people of Bengal when Tagore was a child. Tagore says that Hammergren,
the Swedish man, remains immortal as a kind soul who went past culture and colour to live among
the Bengalis. He represented true humanism that is not separated by race, colour or nationality.
To illustrate Tagore’s humanism fully, I will discuss one of his best known short stories.
Kabuliwala (1892):
Tagore wrote Kabuliwala in 1892. What’s it about? A writer in Calcutta, presumably Tagore himself,
tells the story of a fruit seller from Kabul, Afghanistan who visits the Indian city every year
to sell his fruits. In the course of one of his visits he befriends the writer’s little daughter,
Mini and they bond together. Whenever the fruit seller arrives at their street,
she runs to him shouting Kabuliwala. Wala is a term used for venders like chaiwala means
chai seller but here Kabuliwala also refers to his origin being from Kabul. So the little girl and
the fruit seller laugh and joke with each other as a father and daughter would. But then there’s an
incident. Someone in the neighbourhood refuses to pay Kabuliwala some unpaid debt and Kabuliwala or
Rahman strikes him and the police arrest him. He spends years in an Indian jail. Everyone forgets
him. Mini the little girl grows up. On her wedding day suddenly the fruit seller, Rahman, reappears.
The narrator, the girl’s father meets him an tells him that Mini is getting married so he cannot meet
her today. The fruit seller gives him some gifts. Surprised, Mini’s father asks him about his life.
Rahman tells the man about his own little daughter back in Kabul whom he hasn’t seen for years since
he has been in jail all this time. She too must be grown up now. This has a devastating
effect on the narrator because his own daughter is getting married today and this heightens his
feeling sympathy. He feels Kabuliwala’s pain and suffering of separation from his daughter.
He decides to cut on the cost of the wedding to pay Rahman some money so he can return to Kabul
to see his daughter. Two fathers connected through their love for their daughters.
We don’t know someone until we know them. It’s an incredibly touching story of humanity
and how are all the same when it comes to pain and suffering, no matter how different
we are. For example how the passage of time has a devastating effect on us all.
We see that in the faces of the characters as they realize how much time has passed and how
much they have changed. And how we understand others by putting ourselves in their shoes.
Materialism vs artistic spiritualism
Tagore grew up a Barahmin Hindu but stopped believing in religion when he discovered art
when he read this simple sentence: “When it rains, the leaves tremble.” This simple imagery was like
a divine artistic message for him to take up the spiritual journey of writing poetry, making music
and painting. He says he became a kind of nature’s ambassador to convey its beauty, sounds, the
fleeting human emotions that bubble and die down and the sight of a flower that brings an intense
feeling which soon passes. He considered himself an artist whose canvas was the entire universe.
A musician whose orchestra consisted all the birds and animals. A poet whose words were all
the plants and trees and weather. Art, he says, liberated him. He says: “ I am certain that I felt
a larger meaning of my own self when the barrier vanished between me and what was beyond myself.”
He says to be an artist is to not know evil or death. That’s the meaning of freedom.
In a consumerist world, we define our life’s meaning by how much we
own and how much we can consume. Quote: “Our needs have multiplied so furiously
fast that we have lost our leisure for the deeper realization of our self and
our faith in it.” Tagore believed that the purpose of life is not to own and consume,
but to be creative and make things. Freedom from materialism can give us emotional freedom.
So spiritual freedom is far greater joy than material success. He says: “… an emperor is
merely a decorated slave, remaining chain to his empire, a millionaire is kept pilloried
by his fate in the golden cage of his wealth while this fisherman is free.”
Now, here a poem by Tagore: 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 fragments
by narrow domestic walls; where words come from the depths of truth;
where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
where the clear steam of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever-widening thought and action- into the heaven of freedom, my Father,
let my country awake. Gitanjali: A Poem by Tagore