The 'Religion of Man'

I try to ensure that I get at least a half hour with Tagore every day. That half hour is enough, and in fact, more may overload me with ideas too beautiful to have to share mind space with one another, I feel. Today, however, just five minutes were more than I could take. I read this portion of My Life in My Words repeatedly, it touched me so. I share it with you before I commence a new, blessed day:

Marching with the waves of Life Eternal
we must go forward with Truth as our Polar Star
and no thought of death.
Inclement evil days will pour upon our heads,
but we must struggle on
to keep our Tryst with Him
at whose feet we poured the riches of our heart
from age to age.

The day which had its special significance for me came with all its drifting trivialities of the commonplace life. The ordinary work of my morning had come to its close, and before going to take my bath I stood for a moment at my window, overlooking a marketplace on the bank of a dry river bed, welcoming the first flood of rain along its channel. Suddenly I became conscious of a stirring of soul within me. My world of experience seemed to become lighted, and facts that were detached and dim found a great unity of meaning. The feeling which I had was like that which a man, groping through the fog without knowing his destination, might feel when he suddenly discovers that he stands before his house ...

In a similar manner, on that morning in the village, the facts of my life suddenly appeared to me in a luminous unity of truth. All things that had seemed like vagrant waves were revealed to my mind in relation to a boundless sea. I felt sure that some Being was comprehending me and my world was seeking his best expression in all my experiences, uniting them into an ever-widening individuality which is a spiritual work of art. To this Being I was responsible; for the creation in me is his as well as mine ...

I felt that I had found my religion at least, the Religion of Man, in which the infinite became defined in humanity and came close to me so as to need my love and cooperation.