Sadhana - Rabindranath Tagore (book club suggestions txt) 📗

reader realises that pervading idea, as he reads on, then the reading of the poem is full of joy to him. Then every part of the poem becomes radiantly significant by the light of the whole. But if the poem goes on interminably, never expressing the idea of the whole, only throwing off disconnected images, however beautiful, it becomes wearisome and unprofitable in the extreme. The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which once realised makes all movements full of meaning and joy.

But if we detach its movements from that ultimate idea, if we do not see the infinite rest and only see the infinite motion, then existence appears to us a monstrous evil, impetuously rushing towards an unending aimlessness.

I remember in our childhood we had a teacher who used to make us learn by heart the whole book of Sanskrit grammer, which is written in symbols, without explaining their meaning to us. Day after day we went toiling on, but on towards what, we had not the least notion. So, as regards our lessons, we were in the position of the pessimist who only counts the breathless activities of the world, but cannot see the infinite repose of the perfection whence these activities are gaining their equilibrium every moment in absolute fitness and harmony. We lose all joy in thus contemplating existence, because we miss the truth. We see the gesticulations of the dancer, and we imagine these are directed by a ruthless tyranny of chance, while we are deaf to the eternal music which makes every one of these gestures inevitably spontaneous and beautiful. These motions are ever growing into that music of perfection, becoming one with it, dedicating to that melody at every step the multitudinous forms they go on creating.

And this is the truth of our soul, and this is her joy, that she must ever be growing into Brahma, that all her movements should be modulated by this ultimate idea, and all her creations should be given as offerings to the supreme spirit of perfection.

There is a remarkable saying in the Upanishads: I think not that I know him well, or that I know him, or even that I know him not.

[Footnote: Naham manye suvedeti no na vedeti vedacha.]

By the process of knowledge we can never know the infinite being.

But if he is altogether beyond our reach, then he is absolutely nothing to us. The truth is that we know him not, yet we know him.

This has been explained in another saying of the Upanishads: From Brahma words come back baffled, as well as the mind, but he who knows him by the joy of him is free from all fears.

[Footnote: Yato vacho nivartante aprapya manasa saha anandam brahmano vidvan na vibheti kutacchana.]

Knowledge is partial, because our intellect is an instrument, it is only a part of us, it can give us information about things which can be divided and analysed, and whose properties can be classified part by part. But Brahma is perfect, and knowledge which is partial can never be a knowledge of him.

But he can be known by joy, by love. For joy is knowledge in its completeness, it is knowing by our whole being. Intellect sets us apart from the things to be known, but love knows its object by fusion. Such knowledge is immediate and admits no doubt. It is the same as knowing our own selves, only more so.

Therefore, as the Upanishads say, mind can never know Brahma, words can never describe him; he can only be known by our soul, by her joy in him, by her love. Or, in other words, we can only come into relation with him by union—union of our whole being.

We must be one with our Father, we must be perfect as he is.

But how can that be? There can be no grade in infinite perfection. We cannot grow more and more into Brahma. He is the absolute one, and there can be no more or less in him.

Indeed, the realisation of the paramatman, the supreme soul, within our antaratman, our inner individual soul, is in a state of absolute completion. We cannot think of it as non-existent and depending on our limited powers for its gradual construction. If our relation with the divine were all a thing of our own making, how should we rely on it as true, and how should it lend us support?

Yes, we must know that within us we have that where space and time cease to rule and where the links of evolution are merged in unity. In that everlasting abode of the ataman, the soul, the revelation of the paramatman, the supreme soul, is already complete. Therefore the Upanishads say: He who knows Brahman, the true, the all-conscious, and the infinite as hidden in the depths of the soul, which is the supreme sky (the inner sky of consciousness), enjoys all objects of desire in union with the all-knowing Brahman. [Footnote: Satyam jnanam anantam brahma yo veda nihitam guhayam paramo vyoman so’cnute sarvan kaman saha brahmana vipaschite.]

The union is already accomplished. The paramatman, the supreme soul, has himself chosen this soul of ours as his bride and the marriage has been completed. The solemn mantram has been uttered: Let thy heart be even as my heart is. [Footnote: Yadetat hridayam mama tadastu hridayan tava.] There is no room in this marriage for evolution to act the part of the master of ceremonies. The eshah, who cannot otherwise be described than as This, the nameless immediate presence, is ever here in our innermost being. “This eshah, or This, is the supreme end of the other this”; [Footnote: Eshasya parama gatih] “this This is the supreme treasure of the other this”; [Footnote: Eshasya parama sampat.] “this This is the supreme dwelling of the other this”; [Footnote: Eshasya paramo lokah] “this This is the supreme joy of the other this.” [Footnote: Eshasya parama anandah] Because the marriage of supreme love has been accomplished in timeless time. And now goes on the endless lila, the play of love. He who has been gained in eternity is now being pursued in time and space, in joys and sorrows, in this world and in the worlds beyond.

When the soul-bride understands this well, her heart is blissful and at rest. She knows that she, like a river, has attained the ocean of her fulfilment at one end of her being, and at the other end she is ever attaining it; at one end it is eternal rest and completion, at the other it is incessant movement and change.

When she knows both ends as inseparably connected, then she knows the world as her own household by the right of knowing the master of the world as her own lord. Then all her services becomes services of love, all the troubles and tribulations of life come to her as trials triumphantly borne to prove the strength of her love, smilingly to win the wager from her lover. But so long as she remains obstinately in the dark, lifts not her veil, does not recognise her lover, and only knows the world dissociated from him, she serves as a handmaid here, where by right she might reign as a queen; she sways in doubt, and weeps in sorrow and dejection. She passes from starvation to starvation, from trouble to trouble, and from fear to fear. [Footnote: Daurbhikshat yati daurbhiksham klecat klecam bhayat bhayam.]

I can never forget that scrap of a song I once heard in the early dawn in the midst of the din of the crowd that had collected for a festival the night before: “Ferryman, take me across to the other shore!”

In the bustle of all our work there comes out this cry, “Take me across.” The carter in India sings while driving his cart, “Take me across.” The itinerant grocer deals out his goods to his customers and sings, “Take me across”.

What is the meaning of this cry? We feel we have not reached our goal; and we know with all our striving and toiling we do not come to the end, we do not attain our object. Like a child dissatisfied with its dolls, our heart cries, “Not this, not this.” But what is that other? Where is the further shore?

Is it something else than what we have? Is it somewhere else than where we are? Is it to take rest from all our works, to be relieved from all the responsibilities of life?

No, in the very heart of our activities we are seeking for our end. We are crying for the across, even where we stand. So, while our lips utter their prayer to be carried away, our busy hands are never idle.

In truth, thou ocean of joy, this shore and the other shore are one and the same in thee. When I call this my own, the other lies estranged; and missing the sense of that completeness which is in me, my heart incessantly cries out for the other. All my this, and that other, are waiting to be completely reconciled in thy love.

This “I” of mine toils hard, day and night, for a home which it knows as its own. Alas, there will be no end of its sufferings so long as it is not able to call this home thine. Till then it will struggle on, and its heart will ever cry, “Ferryman, lead me across.” When this home of mine is made thine, that very moment is it taken across, even while its old walls enclose it. This “I” is restless. It is working for a gain which can never be assimilated with its spirit, which it never can hold and retain.

In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, “Lead me across”.

But as soon as it is able to say, “All my work is thine,” everything remains the same, only it is taken across.

Where can I meet thee unless in this mine home made thine? Where can I join thee unless in this my work transformed into thy work?

If I leave my home I shall not reach thy home; if I cease my work I can never join thee in thy work. For thou dwellest in me and I in thee. Thou without me or I without thee are nothing.

Therefore, in the midst of our home and our work, the prayer rises, “Lead me across!” For here rolls the sea, and even here lies the other shore waiting to be reached—yes, here is this everlasting present, not distant, not anywhere else.

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