Rabindranath Tagore and His “Master”

By “AN ENQUIRER”

Who was the spiritual master of Rabindranath? The answer to this question has set many a person a-thinking continuously, and for long converted their minds into so many churning-rods. When the English rendering of his Gitanjali was first published, several of the Theosophists, for instance, understood by his frequent reference to “My Master”, one of those august adepts on the Himalayas in whose existence they believe, while the Christians, who said that the book was but biblical in the intensity of its mystical vision as well as in its emotional and expressional apparatus, thought that the term alluded to Christ. Of course, as every earnest student of his works knows, he meant nothing of the kind. For his Master was none else but God with His individualized aspect in is own inner consciousness, whom he gave the especial appellation of Jeevan-devata, “the Lord of life.”

However, on one occasion, in reply to a young Sindhi school-girl’s query, “Who is your Master?” the Poet replied readily, “Buddha.” Now this is quire significant because it is usually stated that his thinking was influenced effectively and invariably, if not exclusively by the Upanishads. That is undoubtedly true. But may it not be also that the Poet’s conception of Godhead was not only as that of a Person, but that it was impersonal as well, He becoming It, the lover or the Beloved becoming Law, too? Again, was such an impersonal envisaging of the Core and crux of the universal entity or existence a later phase of his own spiritual evolution? For it does not appear to have been so patent during the first half or so of his pilgrimage or pursuit of the Oversoul, unless his initial interior experience, while he was yet in his teens, converging on conversion, that One Supreme (without a second) Energy underlined the million-faceted manifestation, called creation, be a proof in point.

The fact of the matter, as it would appear, is that though the Poet “sang of many a song in many a mood”, yet, as he himself has said in one of his songs, “their ultimate meaning has always pointed to Thee.” (God) But this “Thee” was sometimes “He” and at other times “It”.

A study of his works written in the course of the latter half of his last earthly quest, however, leads the writer to suggest in all humility that the impersonalization of the Eternal, so to speak, was emphasized by him, towards the end of his career. It may have been impressed on him, no doubt, by the Upanishadic allusions to, or implication of, the Truth of Life, as against the Lord of Life. Could it be that this was due to his having studied, in the meantime, the Buddhist scriptures? Or, was it influenced also by the process and “provocation” and pressure of modern science? Or, again, was it as a result of a realisation on his part, just as the Buddha evidently had, that, in the ultimate, even his poetic vocabulary and imagery, so rich and variegated could not angle within its net the inexhaustible nature of the One Indivisible and Eternal and that all that he could say truthfully at the penultimate end of his search was the Supreme Reality is best represented in syllables of silence. He is “It”. In this connection one little fact may be mentioned, for it is quite suggestive. Edmond Holmes’ Creed of the Buddha was one of the Poet’s great favourites among books, so much so that he had more than once recourse to it, something very unusual for him. Maybe, then, that his answer to the aforesaid inquiry was made at a time when he had, perhaps, a little while before read the book afresh! Maybe, again, he might have used the name “Buddha” in the special sense that “The Enlightened One”, was not merely a particular historical person but the Eternally Illuminated One, that changes, when It so chooses, a Saul into a Paul, a Siddhartha into a Buddha. In other words, Buddha may have meant to him a personal expression of the impersonal, eternal Law, though the frigid absoluteness of Truth or Law can be converted into an object of adoration and affection only by the vitalizing warmth of personalization,–of making it a person’s own through devotion, and discipline and dedication. And this is quite logical because, in the last resort, as Gandhiji says, “the Law and the Law-giver are one”.

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