topics: |  essay | philosophy | religion

based on the 1931 Hibbert Oxford lectures

Tagore sets forth a new religion, which he calls the "Religion of Man." The
Religion of Man differs radically from most organized religions, in the way
it defines God; in its views on the origins of man and the cosmos, on
revelation, and on authority; and in its commandments.

   God is defined as the Universal Spirit, the Spirit of Life, the Eternal
Spirit of human unity beyond our direct knowledge, the Super Soul that
permeates all moving things, the Supreme Person, Man the Eternal. This God
dwells not in the heavens but in the heart of every human being.

   The creation myth of this religion is the story of evolution. The first stage
of Life's evolution was the physiological process, which seems to have
reached its finality in man. The second stage of evolution, the spiritual
process, is continuing. The evolutionary process has as its ultimate goal,
not the attainment of Heaven or of nirvana or satori, but the release of each
individual's consciousness from the illusory bond of the separate self and
the realization of the spiritual unity of all human beings.

   Truth in the Religion of Man is not that which was revealed only to a chosen
few in the distant past. It is not reached through the analytical process of
reasoning. It does not depend for proof on some corroboration of outward
facts or the prevalent faith and practice of a group of people. Rather, the
truth is revealed to every person every day, if we but listen. Truth comes
like an inspiration and brings with it an assurance that it has been sent
from an inner source of divine wisdom. This truth comes through an
illumination, almost like a communication of the universal self to the
personal self.

   Every human being is capable of experiencing such illumination (the mystical
experience). Although some people are more successful at actualizing this
potentiality than others, most people have had at one time or another at
least a partial vision of the universal unity. Furthermore, we can each
increase our power of realization through "disciplined striving"--through our
participation in nature, literature, arts, legends, symbols, and ceremonials,
and through the remembrance of heroic souls who have personified this truth
in their lives.

   The truth, Tagore says, is inside us, like a song which has only to be
mastered and sung. It is like the morning which has only to be welcomed by
raising the screens and opening the doors.

   Tagore calls Zarathustra the first prophet of the Religion of
Man. Zarathustra, who spiritualized the meaning of sacrifice, was the first
to address his words to all humanity, regardless of distance of space or
time. He emancipated religion from the exclusive narrowness of the tribal
God, the God of a chosen people, and offered it the Universal Man.

   The only commandment in the Religion of Man is that the individual who has
realized the Divine Truth accept his or her responsibility to communicate
this truth in word and deed to others.

   Tagore stresses that his understanding of the Religion of Man came to him
through his personal experience of the holy, not from knowledge gathered or
through any process of philosophical reasoning. However, he acknowledges that
certain factors enabled him to be receptive to these visions. One was the
feeling of intimacy with Nature that he had from early childhood. Another
formative experience was the songs he heard from wandering village singers,
belonging to a popular sect of Begal, called Bauls. The Bauls, who have no
images, temples, scriptures, or ceremonials, express in their songs an
intense yearning of the heart for the divine which is in Man. In addition,
from childhood, he was immersed in the philosophy of the Upanishad, which
holds that the world is pervaded by one supreme unity and that true enjoyment
can be found only through the surrender of our individual self to the
Universal Self.

   Tagore believed that the task of the poet and artist is to direct our
attention to the Infinite and to remind us that it ever dwells within each of
us. He performs this task admirably in this book.