Shantiniketan/Paradise
PARADISE
BEING AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE BEFORE JAPANESE STUDENTS IN TOKYO
The following words were spoken by Rabindranath Tagore before an audience of young Japanese children and Normal School students in Tokyo. They so truly represent the ideals of Shantiniketan that they will be useful to readers of this book, to convey to them the spirit in which Rabindranth Tagore comes into touch with those who teach and learn in his School:—
“My dear young friends, do not be frightened at me, or think that I am going to give you a long lecture, or good advice, or moral lessons. I know I look rather formidable, with my grey beard and white hair and flowing Indian robe, and people, who know me by my exterior, make the absurd mistake that I am an old man, and give me a higher seat and pay me deference by keeping at a distance from me. But if I could show you my heart, you would find it green and young,—perhaps younger than some of you who are standing before me. And you would find, also, that I am childish enough to believe in things which the grown-up people of the modern age, with their superior wisdom, have become ashamed to own,—and even modern schoolboys also. That is to say, I believe in an ideal life. I believe that, in a little flower, there is a living power hidden in beauty which is more potent than a Maxim gun. I believe that in the bird’s notes Nature expresses herself with a force which is greater than that revealed in the deafening roar of the cannonade. I believe that there is an ideal hovering over the earth,—an ideal of that Paradise which is not the mere outcome of imagination, but the ultimate reality towards which all things are moving. I believe that this vision of Paradise is to be seen in the sunlight, and the green of the earth, in the flowing streams, in the beauty of spring time, and the repose of a winter morning. Everywhere in this earth the spirit of Paradise is awake and sending forth its voice. We are deaf to its call; we forget it; but the voice of eternity wells up like a mighty organ and touches the inner core of our being with its music. Though we do not know it, yet it is true, that everywhere men and women are living in the atmosphere of these sounds. This voice of eternity reaches their inner ears. It models the tunes of the harp of life, urging us in secret to attune our own lives according to that ideal, and to send our aspiration up to the sky, as flowers send their perfume into the air and birds their songs. Even the most depraved, in some moment of their lives, have been touched by this voice, and not altogether lost. They have felt a beauty in the depth of their being, which has reached them from heaven itself.
“These may seem nursery rhymes to you, and too absurd to be believed by grown-up people. But I am one of those children who never grow old, and I would ask you to accept me as one of yourselves.
“I know that some who are here are being trained to be Teachers. That is my vocation also, but I have never had any training. I have a school, in which we try to teach boys better knowledge and higher ideals of life. But, for myself, I must confess I was a truant, and left off going to school when I was thirteen, so I am a bad example to follow. But I have been trying to make up for lost time, and have undertaken this task of teaching my boys at Bolpur.
“One thing is truly needed to be a Teacher of children,—it is to be like children; to forget that you are wise or have come to the end of knowledge. In order to be truly the guide of children, you must never be conscious of age, or of superiority, or anything of that kind. You must be their elder brother, ready to travel with them in the same path of higher wisdom and aspiration. This is the only advice I can offer to you on this occasion,—to cultivate the spirit of the eternal child, if you must take up the task of training the children of Man.”
