For a reawakening of consciousness and empathy, the realisation of man in terms of wholeness is now obligatory. This demands the realisation of the Infinite. Let the spirit of the Infinite become a fascinating reality in man. “Man mustrealise”, Tagore once remarked, that “the wholeness of his existence, his place in the Infinite; he must know that hard as he may strive, he can never create his honey within the cells of his hive, for the perennial supply of his life-food is outside their walls. He must know that when man shuts himself out from the vitalising and purefying touch of the Infinite, and falls back upon himself for his sustenance and his healing, then he goads himself into madness, tears himself into shreds, and eats his own substance. Deprived of the background of the whole, his poverty loses its one great quality, which is simplicity, and becomes squalid and shamefaced. His wealth is no longer magnanimous; it grows merely extravagant. His appetites do not minister to his life and play the fiddle in the lurid light of the conflagration.

“Then it is that in our self-expression we try to startle and do not attract; in art we strive for originality and lose sight of truth which is old and yet ever new; in literature we miss the complete view of man which is simple and yet great. Man appears instead as a psychological problem, or as the embodiment of a passion that is intense because abnormal, being exhibited in the glare of a freely emphatic artificial light. When man’s consciousness is restricted only to the immediate vicinity of his human self, the deeper roots of his nature do not find their permanent soil, his spirit is ever on the brink of starvation, and in the place of healthful strength he substitutes rounds of stimulation. Then it is that man misses his inner perspective and measures his greatness by its bulk and not by its vital link with the infinite, judges his activity by its movement and not by the repose of perfection. The repose is in the starry heavens, in the ever-flowing rhythmic dance of creation.” (Sadhana, Macmillan India Limited, New Delhi, 1988, pp. 9-10).

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A worshipper of life, Tagore places man on the apex of wonder, modesty and reverence. He cares more for advancement within than for external prosperity. His search for the man of the heart goes far beyond apparent happiness and content embedded in artificiality and the miracle of the machine. He emphasises enrichment of the life of man in the wholeness of humane enlightenment rather than in the parade of external affluence. Let education emulate life from all the positive perspectives for emancipation of man par excellence.

Transparency and transcendence are essential for the ascent of man. This can only be ensured if man ceases to be self-satisfied with littleness and untiringly strives for the horizon of vastness. Unlike any other aesthetic visionary, Tagore pays the highest reverence to man who knows no defeat but earns victory in the exercise of altruism. Such an exercise begins with the unison of ‘I’ and ‘We’. With such synchronisation, the relationship between man and man is permanently entwined in love and dedication. Man becomes intrinsically and truly modern and marvellous.

The celebration of consciousness for quality and excellence is the need of the hour. Mere tinkering with superficialities will simply incur disaster and disappointment from which man is violently suffering at this juncture. The crisis of spirituality is the greatest challenge. Change from without by replacing change from within has already aggravated the critical maladies of humankind. Let revolutions be born out of the evolution of man whose most profound and best identity is that he can exceed himself Amritasya putra ~ as Tagore upholds in the light of the Upanishad. Science and reason cannot deliver the science of knowing the eternal identity of man until we encounter the pioneers in this direction.

The destiny of man pines for a home away from, and beyond, home. It rests on widening the sky of the mind, chidakas as Tagore characteristically pointed out. Let man enjoy the delight of holding the head high in the sky. Let a new wave of self-identity flow as an endless fountain of the fullness of man in and through soul consciousness. In Tagore’s poignant pronouncement: “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.’ (Ibid., Realisation of the Infinite, p.140.)

Meanwhile, let us pray for regaining our lost identity:   When the heart is hard and perched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy./ When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song./ When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest./ When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king./ When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.” (Gitanjali, Macmillan India Limited, New Delhi, 1983, XXXIX, p. 22.)

Are we ready?

(The writer is former Professor of Education, Visva-Bharati University)