Sadhana : the realisation of lifeTagore, Rabindranath
Religion
Sadhana : the realisation of life
Tagore, Rabindranath
Philosophy, Hindu; Values
We have what we call in Sanskrit _dvandva_, a series of opposites
in creation; such as, the positive pole and the negative, the
centripetal force and the centrifugal, attraction and repulsion.
These are also mere names, they are no explanations. They are
only different ways of asserting that the world in its essence is
a reconciliation of pairs of opposing forces. These forces, like
the left and the right hands of the creator, are acting in
absolute harmony, yet acting from opposite directions.
There is a bond of harmony between our two eyes, which makes them
act in unison. Likewise there is an unbreakable continuity of
relation in the physical world between heat and cold, light and
darkness, motion and rest, as between the bass and treble notes
of a piano. That is why these opposites do not bring confusion
in the universe, but harmony. If creation were but a chaos, we
should have to imagine the two opposing principles as trying to
get the better of each other. But the universe is not under
martial law, arbitrary and provisional. Here we find no force
which can run amok, or go on indefinitely in its wild road, like
an exiled outlaw, breaking all harmony with its surroundings;
each force, on the contrary, has to come back in a curved line to
its equilibrium. Waves rise, each to its individual height in a
seeming attitude of unrelenting competition, but only up to a
certain point; and thus we know of the great repose of the sea to
which they are all related, and to which they must all return in
a rhythm which is marvellously beautiful.
In fact, these undulations and vibrations, these risings and
fallings, are not due to the erratic contortions of disparate
bodies, they are a rhythmic dance. Rhythm never can be born of
the haphazard struggle of combat. Its underlying principle must
be unity, not opposition.
This principle of unity is the mystery of all mysteries. The
existence of a duality at once raises a question in our minds,
and we seek its solution in the One. When at last we find a
relation between these two, and thereby see them as one in
essence, we feel that we have come to the truth. And then we
give utterance to this most startling of all paradoxes, that the
One appears as many, that the appearance is the opposite of truth
and yet is inseparably related to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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