‘…While God waits for his temple to be built of love, men bring stones..”
Where the mind is without fear
Where the mind is without fear
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 out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream 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 that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian renaissance man
Tagore was not only a creative genius, he was a great man and friend to many. For instance, he was also a good friend from childhood to the great Indian Physicist, Bose. He was educated and quite knowledgeable of Western culture, especially Western poetry and Science. This made him a remarkable person, one of the first of our planet to combine East and West, and ancient and modern knowledge.
Tagore had a good grasp of modern – post-Newtonian – physics, and was well able to hold his own in a debate with Einstein in 1930 on the newly emerging principles of quantum mechanics and chaos. His meetings and tape recorded conversations with his contemporaries such Albert Einstein and H.G. Wells, stand as cultural landmarks, and show the brilliance of this great man.
Although Tagore is a superb representative of his country – India – the man who wrote its national anthem – his life and works go far beyond his country.
He is truly a man of the whole Earth, a product of the best of both traditional Indian, and modern Western cultures.
We have not understood this man otherwise we may not have neglected him and his work but somewhere Indian tendency works here as we never give recognition to any body as great.
Just see his vision when we were not knowing about freedom he saw a dream of country where everybody will enjoy real freedom .He has given national anthem,patriotism,learning theory of naturalism but we have never used him and his literature in full strength. Now just see condition of Shantiniketan and his material preservation . even we cant able to preserve his Nobel prize and just see negligence that even we could not find also so really it is true that we have not understood him or bold statement – we dont want to understand him just we want to use his image. As an traditional India we can put garland on the day ( if remember…) and pat our back as he and we are Indian,and we are proud of him.and people like you from abroad who really love him and understand his importance and his contribution study him and celebrates his Birthday by heart.I salute to him and you too.
Thanks
Is Tagore really not that known and respected in India?
His views on education, and the methods he used to teach were quite exemplary. Perhaps, as he suggests, we might learn a lot from nature itself!
Destination Infinity
indeed., I think I will make a post on his views on education, might be interesting for many. Thanks for the reminder!
Axinia, I didn’t know of Tagore’s love of Physics. But it is not surprising at all; but still it is amazing how often people who are well know as writers and poets are privately great fans of physics too!!
very true.. porobably at the core of it, ohysics has something to do with Divinity…and this is very poetic.
I admire Gurudev Tagore for all his talents, his broad universal vision and most because of the humanitarian touch he gave to everything.
He was and will ever remain a true genius who never lost his touch with the Mother Earth, even though soaring high in the skies !
His music will always remain an epitome to all the other fields of creation he explored !
I would like to suggest you an amazing book by Tagore “Sadhana”; it’s not a poetry collection but it contains many thoughts about the meaning of spirituality!..it’s really wonderful!
thank you Marta, will check it!
http://ignca.nic.in/