Part 1

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CREATIVE UNITY

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1922

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA . MADRAS MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

TO DR. EDWIN H. LEWIS

INTRODUCTION

It costs me nothing to feel that I am; it is no burden to me. And yet if the mental, physical, chemical, and other innumerable facts concerning all branches of knowledge which have united in myself could be broken up, they would prove endless. It is some untold mystery of unity in me, that has the simplicity of the infinite and reduces the immense mass of multitude to a single point.

This One in me knows the universe of the many. But, in whatever it knows, it knows the One in different aspects. It knows this room only because this room is One to it, in spite of the seeming contradiction of the endless facts contained in the single fact of the room. Its knowledge of a tree is the knowledge of a unity, which appears in the aspect of a tree.

This One in me is creative. Its creations are a pastime, through which it gives expression to an ideal of unity in its endless show of variety. Such are its pictures, poems, music, in which it finds joy only because they reveal the perfect forms of an inherent unity.

This One in me not only seeks unity in knowledge for its understanding and creates images of unity for its delight; it also seeks union in love for its fulfilment. It seeks itself in others. This is a fact, which would be absurd had there been no great medium of truth to give it reality. In love we find a joy which is ultimate because it is the ultimate truth. Therefore it is said in the Upanishads that the advaitam is anantam,--"the One is Infinite"; that the advaitam is anandam,--"the One is Love."

To give perfect expression to the One, the Infinite, through the harmony of the many; to the One, the Love, through the sacrifice of self, is the object alike of our individual life and our society.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION v

THE POET'S RELIGION 3

THE CREATIVE IDEAL 31

THE RELIGION OF THE FOREST 45

AN INDIAN FOLK RELIGION 69

EAST AND WEST 93

THE MODERN AGE 115