An open library of thought
Seek the infinite within the finite world.
Tagore holds that the infinite is not reached by fleeing the world: it is realised in finite things, relationships and joy, as the Upanishads suggest when they see all things pervaded by the divine.
In Gitanjali the worshipper is told to leave the closed temple and seek God where the tiller works the hard ground.
Human beings fulfil themselves by growing into their surroundings rather than walling themselves off; Sadhana contrasts a city-bred will to conquer with a forest ideal of kinship with all life.
At Santiniketan classes were held outdoors under the trees, as part of an education in attention to the living world.
Tagore distinguishes the social life of a people from the Nation, an organization of a whole population for power, profit and efficiency that turns persons into instruments and justifies domination.
A state that ranks every policy by industrial output and military strength treats its citizens as parts of an apparatus.
Freedom means more than political independence: it requires minds released from fear, dead habit and narrow walls, and an education that cultivates reason, imagination and sympathy.
Poem 35 of Gitanjali prays for a country where the mind is without fear and knowledge is free.