The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore
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The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore (Ashgate World Philosophies Series) (Ashgate World Philosophies Series) by Kalyan Sen Gupta (z-lib.org)
particular cultures. Actually speaking, cultures are different. What is needed is eagerness of heart for a fruitful communication between different cultures. Anything that prevents this is barbarism. 32 This explains his critique (discussed in Chapter 2) of the disharmonious relations that are created by nationalistic and ethnocentric creeds that preach the hegemony of one people or group over others. Despite the conflicts he witnessed in his own times, and not least in his own country, Tagore retained the conviction that a plurality of different cultures, far from guaranteeing dissonance, offers the opportunity for the more global harmony or ‘symphony’ of humankind. It is in the context of this ‘symphonic’ ideal that we should understand three of the concepts that Tagore regularly invokes – surplus, love and freedom. The term ‘surplus’, which we shall encounter on several occasions in the following chapters, indicates the capacity of a human being, once his or her biological and other basic needs are met, to transcend individual and pragmatic concerns. It indicates, one might say, a person’s sense that his or her worth lies in relation to what is beyond the confines of self. As Tagore puts it, ‘I am certain that I felt a larger meaning of my own self when the barrier vanished between me and what was beyond myself.’ Or again: Our imagination makes us intensely conscious of a life we must live which transcends the individual life and contradicts the biological meaning of the instinct of self-preservation. 33 This transcendence of individual confinement that our ‘surplus’ capacity enables may be manifested in many spheres of human life – in our fellowship Rabindranath Tagore: His Life and Thought 13 with other persons, in artistic endeavour, in religion, and in our harmony with the natural world. Tagore’s concept of love is also to be understood by reference to the ideal of harmony. ‘Whatever name our logic may give to the truth of human unity,’ he says, ‘the fact can never be ignored that we have our greatest delight when we realize ourselves in others, and this is the definition of love.’ 34 Love, for Tagore, is precisely the feeling whereby human solidarity can be achieved. This does not mean that love is a ‘mere’ sentiment, for there is something ‘truthful’ about love. Love involves an appropriate stance towards other human beings, as creatures who are not objects, but other subjects intimately involved in one another’s identity. Other people belong among ‘us’, not ‘them’. To be sure, the truth that is contained in love is not one we could recognize through detached intellectual reasoning. As the Buddha, too, appreciated, it is only through such affective experiences as love and compassion that one fully appreciates the superficiality and error of regarding people as distinct, hermetically sealed selves. Finally, the idea of freedom, for Tagore, is not that, simply, of independence and non-interference. Such a conception, in fact, is only embraced by people who already feel alienated from one another. Freedom, in Tagore’s view, is an altogether more ‘positive’ thing and requires harmony in one’s relations with others and, indeed, the world as a whole. The point is well made in one of Tagore’s stories. 35 Here an ascetic has renounced the world for the sake of truth and freedom, but finds himself yearning to return to the girl, an ‘untouchable’, whom he had abandoned for the ascetic life. He comes to understand that freedom and salvation lie not in abandoning the world but in intimate communion with and love of other people. The story illustrates Rabindranath’s focus on what he calls ‘the freedom of social relationship’ which one attains by accepting responsibility to one’s community and, in effect, to humanity at large. It is worth citing, in this connection, the following remarks from The Religion of Man: One may imagine that an individual who succeeds in dissociating himself from his fellows attains real freedom, in as much as all ties of relationship imply obligation to others. But we know that … it is true that in the human world only a perfect arrangement of interdependence gives rise to freedom. The most individualistic of human beings who owe no responsibility are the savages who fail to attain their fullness of manifestation … Only those may attain freedom … who have the power to cultivate mutual understanding and co-operation. The history of the growth of freedom is the history of the perfection of human relationship. 36 Freedom, Tagore is arguing, is not something to value if it is exercised in isolation from others. It is something to prize only when it is seen as the possibility of extending the boundaries of the ego through engagement with 14 Download 467.3 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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