Tagore and Sri Aurobindo

“Tagore has been a wayfarer towards the same goal as ours in his own way...”

(Sri Aurobindo)

Sri Aurobindo wrote these words whose significance is often overlooked by the masses. Both Tagore – The World Poet and Sri Aurobindo – The Mystic shared the same purpose in their lives. Rabindranath met Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry and shared his homage through his poem “Namaskar”:

অরবিন্দ, রবীন্দ্রের লহ নমস্কার! (Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee!)

There were innumerable parallels in their lives. 

The year 1905 deeply affected both of them – the aftermath of partition of Bengal. Streets were crowded in Kolkata, the masses joined together, marching and singing in protest opposing the aggressively bitter move of the British Government.

Then comes the year 1914 – The First World War when nature was silently breaking the patterns evolving into the new. Tagore was immersed into the forces of nature and their workings at the material level on earth as expressed in his series of poems “Balaka” while Sri Aurobindo was writing about the Supramental forces descending upon Earth through Him in the pages of “Arya”.

During this period Tagore has synthesized many songs which points towards the manifestation of the unseen Supramental forces into the physical wrapped in the essence of modernity:

সীমার মাঝে, অসীম, তুমি (O Infinite, Thou dwellest in the finite)

It is interesting to speculate what guides the higher destiny of mankind resulting in the advent of Tagore and Sri Aurobindo upon this earth. They have sacrificed their lives to guide the nation and mankind progressively forward and upward.

Tagore has propagated his human centred philosophy through aesthetics whereas Sri Aurobindo has driven consciousness centred philosophy through evolution arriving at the same destination where man unites and merges into the cosmic consciousness.

We are blessed to have both of them residing in our anahata as the guiding light. 

- Abhishek Ghosh (India)