ORIGINAL BENGALI WRITINGS (In English Translation) ON ART AND LITERATURE World-Literature (I) ‘REAL poetry, the acme of poetical art,’ says Victor Hugo, ‘is characterised by immensity alone.’ That is why Aeschylus, Lucretius, Shakespeare and Corneille had conquered his heart. Had he been acquainted with Sanskrit literature he would have included Valmiki and the Vedic seers. As a matter of fact, what we want to derive from poetry or any other artistic creation is a glimpse of the Infinite and the Eternal. When the heart opens wide, it soars aloft to clasp the whole universe with its outspread wings. In the absence of the spirit of univers

Tagore the Unique IT is no hyperbole to say that Tagore is to Bengali literature what Shakespeare is to English, Goethe to German, Tolstoy to Russian, or Dante to Italian and, to go into the remoter past, what Virgil was to Latin and Homer to Greek or, in our country, what Kalidasa was to ancient Sanskrit. Each of these stars of the first magnitude is a king, a paramount ruler in his own language and literature, and that for two reasons. First, whatever formerly was immature, undeveloped, has become after them mature, whatever was provincial or plebian has become universal and refined; whatever was too personal has come to be universal. The first miracle performed by these gr

The Poet and the Yogi IT is at times said that a critic, at least a successful critic, is a poet who has failed. Likewise the poet himself is a Yogi who has failed. That is to say, to be a good and genuine poet one has first to be a Yogi. Is it really so? Just to prove it a French priest has even gone to the length of writing a book.¹ Of course, Abbé Brémond has not used the term 'Yogi' but 'mystic', and prayer, he adds, is the inherent virtue of a mystic. We can then hold that a Yogi, a spiritual aspirant or even a mere aspirant – on the whole they mean the same. According to Brémond, a poet is he who has either fallen from the status of a mystic or has deviated from

On Karmayoga (A Letter) You want to do something. It seems it has become impossible for you to remain quiet. But you cannot make up your mind as to what you should do. You seem to think that whatever work you do would be commonplace and trivial and would have no inner support. You find no work after your heart. But I am afraid you have started from a wrong idea. Bear in mind that the most essential thing in one's life is 'to be' and not 'to do'. First, be something, then action will come of itself. Action is the expression of becoming or the natural effect of the fullness of your becoming. What you will do and how far you will go depends solely on what you have become and ho

Pondicherry – II I HAVE said that this cemetery that was Pondicherry had been infested by ghosts and goblins. These had a special category known ordinarily as spies. The word "spy" carries with it, as you know, an association of all that is low and disgusting and unspeakable, things of dark import. But did you know that the word is pure Sanskrit? It was spasa in the old Vedic language. The Vedic Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spasa to trace the movements of his enemies, the forces of evil that clustered round the god. So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. Th

The God of the Scientist IT is meaningless to hold that a scientist must necessarily be an atheist. There is no need to cite instances of the past. Leaving aside the examples of Newton, Kepler and Tycho Brahe, even in the world of to-day it is not rare to find more than one scientist who believes in God. In this respect Lodge, Eddington, Einstein and Planck are outstanding figures that require no introduction. It is generally said that a scientist may indeed be a God-believer, but not in the capacity of a scientist. The faculty by which he acquires religious certainty has no scientific bearing, it belongs to quite a different sphere of human life. The being of man com

The Trinity of Bengal RAMMOHAN, Bankimchandra, Vivekananda – these three personalities represent the three steps in the process of evolution in modern Bengal. Like the three strides of Vishnu these three great souls have occupied three stages of the evolving consciousness of Bengal. The soul of modern Bengal awoke in Rammohan, and then its mind blossomed in Bankim, subsequently its life-energy burst forth in Vivekananda. In fact we may generalise that all disciplines and ways of creation proceed in the same order. The truth that is to manifest in the material world in a concrete physical form appears at first in an apperception of the inner heart, hrdi pratisya. The

Muraripukur - I AT last I made up my mind finally to take the plunge, that I must now join the Manicktolla Gardens in Muraripukur. That meant good-bye to College, good-bye to the ordinary life. A little while ago, Prafulla Chakravarti had come and joined. Both of us belonged to Rungpore, both were of nearly the same age, and intimate friends. This too pushed me to my decision. I had already taken a vow about a year ago, in front of a picture of Kali at a secret ceremony at dead of night, a vow written out in blood drawn from the chest, that I should dedicate my life to the whole-hearted service of the Motherland. With me there was a companion, and also a local leader who

A Small Talk So I am going to tell you a story or perhaps stories. These stories, many of them, I have narrated on many occasions to your elders, that is to say, your predecessors who are now quite grown up and are at present among gentlemen. Here is the story: Once upon a time there was a little girl, quite young, very nice, very pretty, living in her family with her parents, particularly in the company of her grandfather. This grandfather was rather old but extremely nice and kind and gentle like herself. He loved very much the child, indeed the grandfather adored his grand-daughter and the child reciprocated the feeling. It happened however, that the old man fell ill, ve