Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-05
Sees Spiritual Awakening.

among the best.
Sees Spiritual Awakening.
But nevertheless he saw and still sees
that the West can never understand
what the East has to give as long as the
national ideal limits policy and stunts
natural growth for selfish ends Tagore
through his spectacles, which give to his
face an even wiser expression through
its placid beauty, sees no dfminution of
these barriers, though he welcomes
evidences Of spiritual awakening and
understanding. 1t were well If we took
heed amid the busy routine of our lives
to his insistent cry that the living bonds
Of society are giving way to mechanical
organization. Hence harmony in all re-
lationshipS is becoming more and more
difficult to maintain. We have broken
life up into fragments and no longer
realize that there is whole.
The Man of the East has always held
to his faith in the eternal, to his con-
viction that growth is a movement of
the whole, not merely an addition to
this or that department among the
many departments into which we have
divided life. Modern society suffers from
this loss Of a sense of Wilderness; it Is
unhappy because it is blind to this
unity. Labor is one force, capital an
other, government a third, and so on.
But where is the unity existing between
them? AS Tagore says in his essays
Creative Unity: Goodness Is the
miracle which turns the tumult of chaos
into a dance of beauty"
These words of Tagore are given US
in our own tongue, for he is a master
Of English, having studied 1t since his
early years. He may write in Ben
galeSe, but he also speaks our own
speech, even with the aptneSS Of COL
loquial ease. Note 1t in this passage
about the ideals of education which he
desires to have fulfilled in his Eastern
University:
Speaks In Familiar Tone.
1.-THE Western education which we
have CHANGED to know Is imperSonal.
Its complexion is also white, but it is
the wilderness of the whitewashed
| class room walls. 1t dwells in the cold
storage compartments of lessons and
the ice-packed minds of the school
! masters. The effects which it had on
my mind when as a boy I was COM
PEELED to go to school I have described
elsewhere Tin a graphic sheet of
'ReminiscencesO. My feeling was very
much the same as a tree might have
which was not allowed to live its full
life, but was cut down to be made into
| packing cases"
| Here is an idiom which does not
| sound artificial. OF course, it may be
argued that since Tagore went to Eng
| lish schools and was a student at OK
ford University, 1t is not unnatural
that he should write English well. Ia
gore is Oriental, but he speaks to the
| West in q. tone which cannot fail to be
understood as piercing to the root of U.S.
| He visits no country in the spirit of
| 2nfaQ0nlSm. q ~ AZ
| life as well as a prophet of life eternal.
I had the pleasure of doing some writ
| ing with him during his visit to Amer
lea in 1916. We then had long talks
on midas problems, which in some re-
spects he likened to our own. To
him then, with the noise of war re-
sounding In his ears, civilization could
only exist where there could be found
a basis for social cooperation and q
willingness to hasten the relinquish-
ment Of national exploitation.
Mad Rush for Gain.
Where can there be beauty and truth.
he then questioned, when there is such
mad rush for gain? AS long as
this condition lasts, he told me, the
message of the East will remain an
unfathomed mystery for the West
What is needed is moral adjustment
Europe, he declared then, is not Tight
ing for that end. but for the extension
of national boundaries. The hope fol-
America in those days was that habit
and tradition had not clutched the root
of her heart; We were free from habits
of mind that cloyed. We faced, how
ever, the blight of organization.
So spoke this teacher. whose students
/ have nicknamed him "Gurudev," mean.
ing the Divine Master or Spiritua
Teacher They do not call him either
Rabindranath or Tagore, but Gurudev
.. What will he find. now that he comes
, 70 US again on . visit? He q *
lCo11fdnIied an Eiffh Paaa s -