The lamp contains its oil, which it holds securely in its close grasp and guards from the least loss. Thus is it separate from all other objects around it and is miserly. But when lighted it finds its meaning at once; its relation with all things far and near is established, and it freely sacrifices its fund of oil to feed the flame.
Such a lamp is our self. So long as it hoards its possessions, it keeps itself dark, its conduct contradicts its true purpose. When it finds illumination, it forgets itself in a moment, holds the light high, and serves it with everything it has; for therein is its revelation. This revelation is the freedom which Buddha preached. He asked the lamp to give up its oil. But purposeless giving up is a still darker poverty which he never could have meant. The lamp must give up its oil to the light and thus set free the purpose it has in its hoarding. This is emancipation. The path Buddha pointed out was not merely the practice of self-abnegation, but the widening of love. And therein lies the true meaning of Buddha’s preaching.
We can look at our self in its two different aspects. The self which displays itself, and the self which transcends itself and thereby reveals its own meaning. To display itself it tries to be big, to stand upon the pedestal of its accumulations, and to retain everything to itself. To reveal itself, it gives up everything it has, thus becoming perfect like a flower that has blossomed out from the bud, pouring from its chalice of beauty all its sweetness.
Rabindranath Tagore in Sadhana
Image above: Joint issue of postage stamps by Canada and India in 2017 on the occasion of Diwali, the Indian festival of lights. Courtesy: Better Philately on X.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an Indian polymath of international repute. He was a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, educationist and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With his hugely popular book of poetry titled Gitanjali, he became the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Jana Gana Mana, a song composed by him in a Sanskritised form of Bengali, was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem. In 1971, another song of his, Amar Shonar Bangla, composed in 1905 became the national anthem of Bangladesh. Sri Lanka’s national anthem, Sri Lanka Matha, was also inspired by his work.
Image above: A miniature sheet issued by India Post in 2011 to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.