Sadhana : the realisation of lifeTagore, Rabindranath
Religion
Sadhana : the realisation of life
Tagore, Rabindranath
Philosophy, Hindu; Values
So in the freedom of our will, we have the same dualism of
appearance and truth--our self-will is only the appearance of
freedom and love is the truth. When we try to make this
appearance independent of truth, then our attempt brings misery
and proves its own futility in the end. Everything has this
dualism of _māyā_ and _satyam_, appearance and truth. Words are
_māyā_ where they are merely sounds and finite, they are _satyam_
where they are ideas and infinite. Our self is _māyā_ where it
is merely individual and finite, where it considers its
separateness as absolute; it is _satyam_ where it recognises its
essence in the universal and infinite, in the supreme self, in
_paramātman_. This is what Christ means when he says, "Before
Abraham was I am." This is the eternal _I am_ that speaks
through the _I am_ that is in me. The individual _I am_ attains
its perfect end when it realises its freedom of harmony in the
infinite _I am_. Then is it _mukti_, its deliverance from the
thraldom of _māyā_, of appearance, which springs from _avidyā_,
from ignorance; its emancipation in _çāntam çivam advaitam_, in
the perfect repose in truth, in the perfect activity in goodness,
and in the perfect union in love.
Not only in our self but also in nature is there this
separateness from God, which has been described as _māyā_ by our
philosophers, because the separateness does not exist by itself,
it does not limit God's infinity from outside. It is his own
will that has imposed limits to itself, just as the chess-player
restricts his will with regard to the moving of the chessmen.
The player willingly enters into definite relations with each
particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very
restrictions. It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as
he pleases, but if he does so then there can be no play. If God
assumes his rôle of omnipotence, then his creation is at an end
and his power loses all its meaning. For power to be a power must
act within limits. God's water must be water, his earth can never
be other than earth. The law that has made them water and earth
is his own law by which he has separated the play from the player,
for therein the joy of the player consists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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