UNIVERSAL MAN

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UNIVERSAL MAN

 

There was a time when we prayed for special concessions, we

expected that the laws of nature should be held in abeyance for our

own convenience. But now we know better. We know that law cannot be

set aside, and in this knowledge we have become strong. For this law

is not something apart from us; it is our own. The universal power

which is manifested in the universal law is one with our own power.

It will thwart us where we are small, where we are against the

current of things; but it will help us where we are great, where we

are in unison with the all.... Thus we find that, just as throughout

our bodily organization there is a principle of relation by virtue of

which we can call the entire body our own, and can use it as such, so

all through the universe there is that principle of uninterrupted

relation by virtue of which we can call the whole world our extended

body and use it accordingly. And in this age of science it is our

endeavour fully to establish our claim to our world-self. We know all

our poverty and sufferings are owing to our inability to realize this

legitimate claim of ours. Really, there is no limit to our powers,

for we are not outside the universal power which is the expression of

universal law. We are on our way to overcome disease and death, to

conquer pain and poverty; for through scientific knowledge we are

ever on our way to realize the universal in its physical aspect. And

as we make progress we find that pain, disease and poverty of power

are not absolute, but that it is only the want of adjustment of our

individual self to our universal self which gives use to them.

It is the same with our spiritual life. When the individual man

in us chafes against the lawful rule of the universal man we become

morally small, and we must suffer. In such a condition our successes

are our greatest failures, and the very fulfilment of our desires

leaves us poorer. We hanker after special gains for ourselves, we

want to enjoy privileges which none else can share with us. But

everything that is absolutely special must keep up a perpetual

warfare with what is general. In such a state of civil war man always

lives behind barricades, and in any civilization which is selfish our

homes are not real homes, but artificial barriers around us. Yet we

complain that we are not happy, as if there were something inherent

in the nature of things to make us miserable. The universal spirit is

waiting to crown us with happiness, but our individual spirit would

not accept it. It is our life of the self that causes conflicts and

complications everywhere, upsets the normal balance of society and

gives rise to miseries of all kinds....

We have seen that in order to be powerful we have to submit to

the laws of the universal forces, and to realize in practice that

they are our own. So, in order to be happy, we have to submit our

individual will to the sovereignty of the universal will, and to feel

in truth that it is our own will. When we reach that state wherein

the adjustment of the finite in us to the infinite is made perfect,

then pain itself becomes a valuable asset. It becomes a measuring rod

with which to gauge the true value of our joy.

 

RABINDRANATH TAGORE