Friday, August 26, 2011

Gitanjali and Santiniketan (contd-7)

From 18th Asharh to 20th Asharh Rabindranath wrote three songs,
1. 18 Asharh, 'He mor chitta punya tirthe jagare dhire'
2. 19      ,,     , 'Jethay thake sabar adham diner hote din'
3. 20      ,,     , ' He mor doorbhaga desh, jader korecho apaman;
The importance of these three songs was explained by the autobiographer of Rabindranath. At this moment he was having exchanges of letters with Kadambini Devi and was explaining her about his ideas of 'Religion and Society'.
( Kadambini Devi was the daughter of Mahim Chandra Sarkar and wife of Pran Gopal Dutta. She did not have high formal education. But her memory and diligence pleased Rabindranath.  After the death of her husband she got keen interest in Philosophy and Literature and took as her study material 'the collected works of Rabindranath Tagore'. In this context she earned the merit of having exchanges of letters with Rabindranath.)
Sometimes Rabindranath wrote letters to Kadambini Dutta advicing her about her personal life, sometimes about his writings, sometimes about his thoughts, sometimes about his ideals. The letter, written by Rabindranath on 20th Asharh (4 Jan 1909) to Myron H. Phelps explaining the problems of India, was sent to Modern Review for publication at that time.  When he was making some addition and alteration of the  letter written to Myron H. Phelps, his mind became filled with the thought of the songs . Hence the thoughts expressed in the letter was revealed in the three songs. However, the letters written to Kadambini Devi  explained, in short, his ideals on religion.
" He was born in a Brahmo family but he had no prejudice  in worshipping God . He was deeply absorbed in his imaginary thinking of a poetic nature which he inherited in his childhood. He was quite ignorant on what the people say about religion, in his boyhood days "  When he was about 13/14, he raid Baishnab Padabali and became satisfied with its rhymes, rhythms, thoughts and language. He  could also understand, slightly, the theories and thoughts of  Baishnab Dharma. Of course there was little relationship with their religion and the Brahmo Society.  Rabindranath was not recognized  as a Brahmo.
   After becoming grown up he entered into the difficult worldly affairs and naturally he had to do some spiritual work. But he always adopted those methods and thoughts which suited him. He discarded the usual processes and explained his action in the lectures delivered at Santiniketan.
He wrote that when we say, we need God and rely on God then we do it as  we do in the case of other  things. But this need is not to get Him, rather it is the need of making union with Him.It is very difficult to unite completely with any one because   the personal identity becomes the barrier.