Life & Death

8/3/2019 Life & Death

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Life and Death in Rabindranaths Vision

Minati Kar

----Translated by Minati Kar and Jesse KnutsonIn what follows, I have attempted to explore and make explicit for thereader

aspects of the metaphysics and soteriology implicit in various writingsof RabindranathTagore on the theme of life and death.The main fount-spring of the cosmos is bliss. The cosmos becomesmanifest onlyafter soaking in the stream of the nectar of bliss. The sentiment of thisbliss(nandarasa) is eternally present in manifold expressions. Evenwithout knowing theessence of this bliss, a vague longing forms in every person to taste itssentiment (rasa)

and also to become one with it. Because of an obscuring veil and a lackof lucidity in themind, this experience does not reveal itself spontaneously. A poet whopossessessurnatural vision, however, has this bliss-sentiment (nandarasa) in hispure vision. Inhis experience, an ungraspable sweetness is grasped. A poets creationis the verbalshining forth of this experience when his individual consciousnesstranscends place, time,and the barrier of the body.

The mantra from the Upaniads reads: nandddhyeva khalv imnibhtnijyante. nandena jtani jvanti, nanda prayanty abhisavi.anti.The cosmos comesfrom bliss alone, remains by bliss alone, and again dissolves in thisbliss. This bliss isconsciousness, and bliss alone is the essence ofrasa. Our life isestablished in blissalone.The questions arises: if the basis of life is bliss, then why does theexperience of

suffering come about? The answer from Indian philosophy is that as aresult of seeing2infinite being as delimited and divided, the experience of suffering isborn. In theUpaniads, it says yad alpa tan martyam. That which is limited orsmall is mortal.


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bhmaiva sukham, Only that which is unlimited is happiness. If oneanalyzes eachmortal bliss, one can see that its culmination is suffering.In the Yogavsitha this topic is analyzed. It says,yath pratikae vastu prathame tuaye tath/

na prpty ekakad rdhvam iti ko nnubhtavn//That same thing which at the moment of being attained is a cause ofbliss, at the nextmoment does not sustain such excitement. This is a truth everyoneexperiences. So justas there is desire with respect to attaining an object, even thepossibility of separationfrom that object gives rise to agitation in the mind. Worldly objectscannot provide uswith endless bliss. This is echoed in the voice of the poet:Since I only have a little, that of mine which goes is gone. If even a

littleis lost, the heart cries alas, alas.A persons bliss coming from earthly means of pleasure is neverfulfilling.Earthly pleasure comes to an end over and over. In order toaccumulate pleasure, onecuts oneself off from boundless being. For this reason, there is no endto the experienceof suffering. When the nectarous fount-spring, this splendorous,nectarous being isexperienced as one with ones life, then there will be no more

experience of suffering, oragony of separation. Rabindranath said:Oh indescribable infinity, when I see you as made ofrasa then mymindbows down beneath everyone. This rasa which cannot be bought in themarket,which cannot be kept under lock and key in a royal treasury, whichcannot contain3its own boundless abundance, which is scattered abundantlyeverywhere, by that

rasa of yours, the grass becomes green on the earth, by it forestflowers receivetheir beauty; by which, even amidst all suffering, conflict, snatching,still todaythe multitudinous nectar-streams of love do not dry up or run out--frommomentto moment they become newly fresh in mother and father, in husbandand wife,


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son and daughter. Take that rasas intense, comprehensive form, atiny droplet ofthat nectar, and touch the core of my heart.The poet wanted to experience this vast being within himself. And herealized the

oneness of bliss completely within himself. So intense was his love ofnature, that itcreated an environment such that he realized in his personal life hisconnection withinfinite life. Focusing his profound inner gaze, he says about hisexperience of an intenseconnection with the entire universe:What do you know? What happened? My soul awoke today. Its as if Ihear from a distance the call of a great ocean. Banging, banging,banging, poundand smash open the prison. What song did the bird sing today? The

suns ray hasarrived.Rabindranath found boundless being even within the bounded. He said:we havea powerful attraction toward the boundless, and this attraction givesimpetus to our life.There comes no good from disregarding this attraction and remainingwithout effort. Wehave to reach the infinite. In reaching it alone is our happiness. (PatherSacay).hiramayena ptrea satyasypihita mukham, The face of truth is

covered by agolden vessel (.opaniad). For achieving a goal, a means is necessary.4In Indian philosophy, the means to knowing the self (tman) is given ashearingthe Vedic literature (.ravaa), ratiocination (manana), and meditation(nididhysana).The meaning of the word manana is ratiocination or logical reflection,but it cannot beconsidered as logical reflection that has no basis in .ruti (Vedicliterature). Nididhysana

means focusing, meaning that as a result of one-mindedness, one canreach boundlessbeing within ones own self--this is meditation. It is the means ofextinguishing all thecontrary forces that are always laboring within us. Greed, malice,jealousy, selfishnessendlessly defile a persons mind. Egotism casts a veil over our vision oftruth. This is


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why the poet prayed over and over to completely dissolve all hisegotism in tears. Thepoet said:When do we want brahman? As soon as we realize that our inclinationand desire take the dust and mud of the world of untruth block the

path of ourillumination. In the darkness of dense delusion, what we gather asjewels, laterturn into a fistful of dust.The poet realized that when the mind remains defiled, then supremetruth does notopen itself. Greed, anger, egotism, etc. dust and mud block the entrygate to supremeillumination. In our philosophical literature, over and over, there hasbeen muchdiscussion of polishing the mirror of the mind. Only when the mirror of

the mind iscompletely spotless does the internal illumination shine. This is whywhat one gains bymeans of a vision of truth is connected to infinite life. The poet is abeliever in thedevelopment of lifes fullness. If one can free oneself from selfishnessand selfcenteredness,then the supreme abode of love is revealed.What will you sing? What will you tell? Tell: Your happiness is false.5Your sadness is false. That man who is sunk in himself and averse

To the wide world and has never learned,Dancing in the waves of universal life,He will have to run, making the truth his pole star, without fearof death. Streams of tears from the storms of bad dayswill fall in droplets on his head. Even in the midst of it, I will go for a[lovers rendez-vouswith him--to whom I have offered all the wealth of my life,from birth to birth. Who is he? I do not know him.I only know this much. That for him alone in the dark of night,Human travelers have gone from eon to eonIn the lightning flash of raging storms, carefully keeping lit

The inner lamp.Throughout the entire universe, supreme and all-powerful is the lordwhomanifests himself through his infinite love and infinite sweetness. Onlyan untaintedmind can realize identity with the lord. To know brahman, in the poetsopinion, one has


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to make ones body divine. If one can release oneself from petty self-absorption, then onecan be tied into the garland of union with the cosmos.In the Upaniad, the greatness of human birth has been announced.iha ced avedd atha satyam asti na ced ihvedn mahat vinai/

bhteu bhteu vicitya dhr pretysml lokd amt bhavanti//So if one knows the tman in ones human birth, then that birth isworthwhile, and if onedoes not know it, annihilation is inevitable. Those who know the tman,also knowing6brahman, become immortal after departing from the mortal world.They do not have totake on another body. Rabindranath wrote in his work ntiniketan:Since the self of man will be born in a land of liberation, a land of bliss,the sun, moon, and stars have become the blazing, auspicious nursery

lamp. Whenthe new-born, liberated soul will fill the entire earth with his crying forlifebreath,at that moment the conch of bliss will resound from world to world.Manis there just to fulfill the hope of universal brahman.The poet has sounded mans victory song. Through resignation,forbearance, andabove all, exertion, a human being awakens his humanity. All spiritualexercise(sdhan) is for attaining full humanity. The poet wrote: To make his

realitycompletely one with the innermost, ultimate reality--this spiritualexercise is the supremespiritual exercise of humanity.The development of humanness or full humanity takes place in thislife. Thushuman life has such an important role. The poets words:To enter the omnipresent universal tman by means of the individualtman, this is the goal of our spiritual exercise. That path we go onevery day, wemust get to realize it. It cannot happen blindly or inertly. Only

consciously canconsciousness be enlarged.The feeling about life that becomes explicit in Rabindranaths poeticalworks is inconnection to life conceived as a universal. He realized in eachmanifestation ofuniversal creation the boundless entity that is supreme bliss. In thecreation and


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dissolution of the world is the multitude of blisss manifestation. Thepoet prayed to thesupreme lord for a life in which selfishness would be kept far away, tobe employed only7

in the vow of good acts, and in which knowledge of truth would glitter,such thatwhatever befalls him would be considered the wish of the supremelyauspicious being.Slackening in study, abundance of wealth, and increased selfabsorption tie us tothe bond of mortal life, and cover the blissful form of consciousness,such that anobscuring veil is created which is difficult to transcend. The poetequated the outer veilwith a shell. Through spiritual exercise a person can transcend his

pettiness. Thus thepoet wished to pierce the shells hard exterior; just as the pearl preysto break from theshell, so if one can break through the covering of desire for worldlyobjects, then thetman whose essence is luminous can be realized:This covering will perish o dear it will perish.This body and mind will become infinite bliss.The poet completely realized the sweetness of the universes beauty.His personallove and affection, happiness and sadness, gain and loss transcended

his personal life andhe attained a universal humanity. Any literature attains universalhumanity when ittransgresses the boundaries of space, time, and the individualpersonality. There is nocreation without excitation. In poetics, the expression it is to beknown by the heart ofthe sahdaya (connoisseur/man of feeling) very deftly makes clearthat the one whocreates and the one who enjoys that creation are for a time seated onthe same plane.

When Rmas pain upon being separated from St is acted out onthe stage, it isextremely personal. As soon as we taste the flavor of poetry in ourheart, experience ofhappiness, sadness, and pain awaken. But this is a cause for someconsideration:becoming fixed on such a personal tale of separation and reunion, whydoes our heart


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become so seized (as if it were our own personal tale)? If we search foran answer we8will see that in the poets work such a universal human sentiment isdeveloped, that the

individual sentiment is no longer tied to the individual personality.Thus its appeal isuniversally human.In a Vaiava poem in the bookThe Golden Boat, the poetdemonstrates that thelove of Rdh and Ka, the songs of love in separation, have astheir starting point thelove and separation of everyday life. However, this love, separation,and reunion, beingmetamorphosed into rasa, have been transformed in poetry becausethey have not been

trapped in an individual personality. The poet said:Tell me truthfully, o Vaiava poet,Where did you find this picture of love?Where did you learn this love songscorched with separation? Gazing in whose eyesDid the teary eyes of Rdh fall into your heart?In our very own garden,flowers bloom. Some offer them at Gods feet,Some keep them for their lover.But this does not displease Him.This love song-garland is

Tied together with the festival of the meetings of men and women.Some offer to Him, some to a lovers neck.What I offer to God let me give to my lover.What I offer to my lover let me give to God.Where else can it happen?9I make God my lover, and my lover God.The Vaiava poets garlanded gift of loveGoes day and night carried in endless loadsOn the path to Vaikuha.Upon analysis, we can say that the main point of this selection is that

the rootfount-spring of creation is excitation. When love, affection, the pain ofseparation, seizehis heart profoundly, the poet creates. This kind of creation profoundlytranscendspersonal realization. It enters into boundless being and then takesresidence in its own


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essence. In this manner, the first verse of poetry (.loka) was uttered byVlmiki uponseeing the murder of a krauca bird. (From .oka sorrow came .lokapoetry.) Uponreflection we can see that all poetry cannot be called kvya, but as

said before, only thatwhich transcends space, time, and the limit of the individualpersonality can becomeuniversally human, that which is created from the hearts deepexperience, from theinnermost, intense realization that is no longer tied to the individualpersonality. For thisreason, the experience that is opened up by a vision of truth is one inevery country andevery time. Truth is one; its appearance takes on manifold forms, justas one sun is seen

differently reflected in lapis lazuli and glass, respectively.The main point of the discussion up to this point is that Rabindranathwanted tomake his life awake to an experience of limitless humanity. Life for himcame to meaninfinite life.What little is going onDo you call that life?It is just a moment, a blink of the eyes10Now I will discuss Rabindranaths vision of death. When the excitation

of lifestops, then from a worldly point of view, one calls it death. Fromancient times, endlesscuriosity on this subject has woken in the minds of humans. On thefield ofKuruketra,reflecting on the terrifying consequences of war, Arjuna was seized byconfusion. Tobreak his stupor Krishna said:avyaktdni bhtni vyaktamadhyni bhrata/avyaktanidhanny eva tatra k paridevan// Gt 2.28The beginning of beings is imperceptible. Their middle is manifest.

Again their end is imperceptible. What cause for lamentation is there?Both the early and later condition of a person is unmanifest, only thepresent lifeis manifest. So why is there any sorrow for something that is simplyimperceptible?Rabindranaths vision of death bears in many ways the reflection of hisfacility in study


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and cultivation that plunged him in the stream of the ideas of theancient ris. In hispersonal life, the death of many loved ones deeply moved his mind. Inthe midst ofvarious changes, sometimes death was for him tender rhythm,

sometimes agitatedyearning, sometimes the beauty of the dark one [Krishna].Sometimes otherwise itappeared as the divine play of the lord of the dance (iva). Thensometimes death is thehighest reality, sometimes the dearest lover of the heart. Focusing onthe highestbeloved, the poet said, under the pseudonym of Bhnusiha:O death you are like my dark lordYour color is like a cloud, your matted locks like a cloudYour lotus hand is red, red is your lip

Your sympathetic lap relieves all pain11Death bestows the nectar of immortalityYou are like my dark lordThe poet here through Rdhs speech imagines death as a lover, asthe supremebeloved. When his beloved, the dark one in the form of death, will wraphim in anembrace, then becoming melted in love, the body will rest in sleep.Then for all time willbe the meeting of hearts. Thus transcending all fear and obstacles, the

poet goes for alovers rendez-vous. Death is his life-long lover. They will exchange foronce the .ubhoi1. Death comes in the form of a groom, and in the form of a newbride, life reachesits culmination in an infinite bsarroom2. This is an unprecedentedsimile. We havefear and doubt with respect to something unknown or unfamiliar. Ingiving up the self,doubt is dispelled. In the poem Waiting [Pratk] the poet madethis feeling evident:

O dear Death, come at the auspicious moment to the vacant bed,As a groom.The lover within me extending a weary hand,With much love,Will clasp your hand, thenReciting the wedding mantra, take her as your own.Offering fierce kisses,Render pale her red lip.


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1 In a traditional Bengali Hindu wedding, this is the ceremony in which the bride iscarried on a palanquinand rotated around the groom seven times before the wedded-to-be look at eachother face to face for thefirst time.2 In a traditional Bengali Hindu wedding, this is the room where the bride and groom

sit and visit for thefirst time.12In the poets vision, death and life are not opposed. Rather they rely oneachother. Life and death form an endless stream. As suffering and deathare true, so peaceand bliss are true. The incommensurability only pertains to mortaltime. Just as,according to the law of the world, a flower withers, so the body meetsdestruction. To thelimited vision, death, suffering, sorrow without end, are only conceivedas unbearableseparation. But to the vision that has transcended such limitations,death is just anotherform of immortality. Rabindranath said:This is why there is no longer heard the call of death, but only the calltoshift from one house to another. It will not let life by any means staystuck insome ancient wall--that which pushes life ahead on its path is calledDeath.

(Pather Sacay).If you look at it from a personal point of view, death is harsh and thereisno consolation in it. If you look at it however from the point of view ofthe entirecosmos, death is exceedingly beautiful, the source of consolation formans soul.(Chinnpatrbali)The poet has an umbilical-like connection with the stream of life. Still inhis minda sense of distress is born that this beautiful world will have to be left

behind. His veryclear announcement was I wish to remain among people. The heartsdeep sadness athaving to break its tie with the world found expression: When themark of my foot willno longer fall on this path.... If one life were shed from the verdanthand of the earth, the


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earths beauty is not thereby diminished. The rosy hue of the settingsun weaves such anet of delight in a persons heart. The beauty of the moonlight fillingthe earth, rivers,and sea will bring forth endless sweet humming. But I, this individual

will no longer13abide under this designation. This experience, however, only relates toindividualcentered,limited life. From the perspective of limitless life, the poet experiencedin hismind that I do not vanish. Even if the individual should vanish: Iwill come and goforever, meaning that even if the individual being is destroyed, thereis no destruction ofthe infinite being.

In the poem, I wont let you go, the poet experienced everyonesdeep yearningfor this earth. With respect to coming and going to and from this world,the comingrepresents the same truth as the going, but at the time of going thereis a tender sigh ofpain sounded. At the auspicious moment of departure, on the lute ofthe heart, he strumsthe tender tune (bhairav rga) I wont let you go.What an anguished appeal arises from the fact that in this life onemust leave ones

loved ones. The poet hears a deep crying throughout the universe onthe part of allcreatures animate and inanimate: I wont let you go. I wont let yougo.Covering heaven and earthThe endless animate and inanimate beingsThe oldest, deepest cryI wont let you goAlas but one mustLike dried up, trifling dust it passes awayIn a single breath--the wealth of his affection.

Since he loved life profoundly, at the moment of departure there is atenderanguish, but he also realized that death does not end in void. In theimage of mortal time14although death appears as a void, from the point of view of universalfullness, death ends


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in fullness. This is why in the poets vision, there is such tranquility indeath.A full pot he emptiesTo fill with something newHe has no fear of wastage,

Since he recalls the gift of fullness.Sometimes the poet calls Death a cowherd:I am Death the cowherd,Taking creation and driving it forwardFrom eon to eonTo ever new pasture grounds.From the infinite motionless hand of the present,I have come to rescue creation,The endless ever-new days to come.Again he called the supreme lord a cowherd. In the vast firmamentroam the cowlights

of the king of cowherds. The poets entreaty: Will the cowherd of mylife call me,o dear, when the sunset comes?Sometimes in the poets vision, death is a dancing lord of the dance(iva). Therhythm of his dance is life and death, creation and destruction. Thecymbals of time ringout each moment to the rhythm of ivas feet, Birth and Death danceside by side. Thepoet said:Death dances and makes life new, the adverse makes the good

radiant, theamazing makes the trifling valuable. When I come to recognition, in thebeautiful15there is the dazzling, and in the midst of bondage the flash of ourliberationawakens. (Vicitro Prabandho, Rkhl)In this way, the poet saw death in the halo of insight; in his vision thereis acontinuity between life and death. Even if there is an apparentcontradiction to the

cursory glance, in the poets consciousness death is the pureilluminator of the soul.For the spiritual practice of becoming one with infinite life, there is noneed in the poetsmind for a distinction between life and death. Mohitlal Majumdar, usinga simile toreflect on Rabindranaths conception of death, says:This death is simply the death at the cessation of the buzzing that


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accompanies the thirst for rasa, the death of becoming silent afterdrinking honey.This distinction is beyond the normal human state, and it cannot bemadeconceivable through verbal means. Rabindranath is not here a poet but

a mysticalpractitioner. It is in this condition that he loves life, with the result thatthere is noneed to keep death at a distance.Thus far in the discussion we have come to understand the essence oflife anddeath reflected in Rabindranaths thought. Through a profound feelingof humanity andan experience of fullness, the poet realized that infinity is the resort ofhuman beings. Inthe vision of fullness, there is no separation, no cutting off, and this is

why in the poetsmind death is like the dark lord Krishna. In the poets faultlessrhythm and verbalsweetness, in the poem The Swing [Jhulana], the sentiment isevident that death bringsthe most intense acquaintance with the supreme object of love. Thusthe poet said Onthe swing of death, holding the reigns, we shall sit side by side. Thereis anothersentiment very evident in this poem--the longing of the individualbeing to merge in

16infinite being. As death was for Rabindranath a dear beloved, so isinfinite being. Tothis infinity the poet said:If you rest on my chest ceaselesslyMy joyous eye always gazes on your form of bliss, o beloved of myheart.If the lovely tender sprout that is your footWill forever touch the raft of lifeThen there is no fear whether I live or die.The final completion of human life is realization of oneness with the

infinite. Thus thepoet has no more trepidation about crossing through this little door.

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