I have ventured to outline some aspects of Tagore’s philosophy of life- though he never claimed to be a philosopher but was content to remain an artist- as it touched some of the basic problems of our times. Rooted in ancient traditions of India, he was open to the inspiration of other civilizations, and travelled and contracted many religious cultures in Asia and the West. His life was interwoven with the thoughts and aspirations of an entire epoch of mankind.

Tagore expressed his philosophy through the integral yet widely diversified field of what is called the Religion of Man. “God loves to see me”, say Tagore, “not his servant, but himself who serves all”.

A twentieth-century poet and seer, he was above all a poet of humanity. His poetry images a perfection of life attainable through the purity of our personal and interpersonal relationship in a community. The great universe of life blends its beauty and its law with our human existence when in our behaviour we allow beauty and truth guide our individual lives. The achievements of science, the progress of technological culture, even the intellectual gifts of art are relevant in terms of what we do for our inner growth and for the well-being of the human community as a whole.

Tagore believed that we have to build our religion on the common ground of daily experience, and accept the pervasive power of divine living through the revelations that directly link us with God and his world – a world where each human personality is unique and essential for the eternal purpose. Harmony with the laws of Nature, and an insightful relationship with its beauty was, for Tagore, a nourishment of our spiritual life. His religion accepted the invitation of music, art, of ceremony and traditional customs which enhanced international living.

Tagore interprets with original observations the Upanishads and other Hindu scriptures. He brings them into relationship with the modern age and its changing, yet perennial needs. Of great interest to Western readers are his deep and moving responses to Western philosophical writings and sacred books, especially the New Testament.

In his Religion of Man he enters deeply into the religious traditions of Iran and into the mystical folk literature and the faiths of wandering Muslims and Hindu minstrels, which contain a wealth of still unravelled spiritual wisdom. He was also keenly susceptible to the life and message of the Buddha as one of the truest inheritances of man.

In a conversation with Prof. Albert Einstein Tagore said, “My religion is in the reconciliation of the super-personal Man, the universal human spirit, in my own individual being”

Over and over again, in one place or another, Tagore emphasizes his belief in “a spiritual world – not as anything separate from this world – but as its innermost truth”. But he goes beyond the old dualism of Spirit and Matter, of God and His creation. In his poetry he postulates the freedom of the human will. In his Sadhana Tagore says, “It is the self of man which the great King of the universe has not shadowed with his throne – he has left it free. In his physical and mental organisation, where man is related with nature, he has to acknowledge the rule of the King, but in his self he is free to disown him. There our God must win His entrance. There he comes as a guest, not as a King, and therefore, he has to wait until he is invited. It is the man’s self from which God has withdrawn his commands, for there he comes to court our love. His armed force, the laws of nature, stand outside its gate, and only beauty, the messenger of his love, finds admission within its precincts.”

All are agreed that Tagore’s philosophical message is embodied in his subtle and intense creations as a poet, as an artist of humanity. But few recognize that to Tagore the crucial problem for the modern age is not political, nor social, nor educational, nor economic. For India, as well as for the West, the supreme problem is application of religion to daily life, that is to say, the need of maintaining harmony between the imperishable values of civilisation and the new techniques that further the process of social evotution.