- Geetanjali 1
- Geetanjali 2
- Geetanjali 3
- Geetanjali 4
- Geetanjali 5
- Geetanjali 6
- Geetanjali 7
- Geetanjali 8
- Geetanjali 9
- Geetanjali 10
- Geetanjali 11
- Geetanjali 12
- Geetanjali 13
- Geetanjali 14
- Geetanjali 15
- Geetanjali 16
- Geetanjali 17
- Geetanjali 18
- Geetanjali 19
- Geetanjali 20
- Geetanjali 21
- Geetanjali 22
- Geetanjali 23
- Geetanjali 24
- Geetanjali 25
- Geetanjali 26
- Geetanjali 27
- Geetanjali 28
- Geetanjali 29
- Geetanjali 30
- Geetanjali 31
- Geetanjali 32
- Geetanjali 33
- Geetanjali 34
- Geetanjali 35
- Osho on Tagore
- Yeat on Gitanjali
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Osho on Rabindranath Tagore and Geetanjali
Osho - It is one of the destinies of those who are born
with genius. A genius never finds that what he has created is enough. He is
always discontented. He goes on creating more and more beautiful things, but
nothing satisfies; he knows that he has much more to give. His heart has to
pour out more songs, more paintings, more music. He is fully aware that
whatever he does falls short of the target; his target is such a faraway
star.
It is not just about Rabindranath Tagore -- these words are true about any
genius in any part of the world, in any time, in any age. These words are
the very essence of the discontent -- because the painter feels in his
dreams that he can paint something unique that has never been done before.
It is so clear in his dreams, but the moment he starts translating his dream
onto the canvas, he starts feeling that what is happening on the canvas is
only a far away echo.
Coleridge, one of the great poets of England, left forty thousand poems
unfinished when he died. During his life again and again he was asked, "Why
don't you complete them? It is such a beautiful poem -- just two lines are
missing and it will be complete."
He always said, "It reflected something that was hovering in my being; but
when I brought it into words, it was not the same thing. To others it may
appear very beautiful, because they don't have anything to compare it with.
But to me... I know the real poem which is within me, still trying to find
new words."
Rabindranath himself used to write each poem many times. His father was a
very talented man, though not a genius; his grandfather was a very talented
man, but also not a genius. Both tried to convince him, "You are mad. You go
on destroying.... You go on making beautiful poems and then you destroy
them. Why do you destroy them?"
Rabindranath said, "Because they are not authentic representations of my
experience. I wanted to do something, and something else has happened. It
may look beautiful to you, but to me it is a failure, and I don't want to
leave any failure behind me. That's why I am going to destroy it."
Rabindranath's father has written, "he has destroyed such beautiful poems...
we cannot conceive how they can be more beautiful. He seems to be mad..."
And when he used to write poems he would close his doors and inform the
whole house that for no reason at all should he be disturbed -- not even for
food. Sometimes days would pass -- two days, three days -- and the whole
family would be worried... he was constantly writing and destroying. Until
he came to a settlement where something of his inner vision had been caught
in the net of words, he would not open the door.
In this book GITANJALI -- `gitanjali' means `offering of songs', it is an
offering to God -- Rabindranath says, "I don't have anything else. I can
only offer my deepest, heartfelt dreams, that I have brought into the
poems." Hence he gave the name GITANJALI -- `offering of songs'. These are
the very few chosen poems which he has not destroyed. They are immensely
beautiful. But he was not satisfied even with these poems, although he got a
Nobel prize for this book.
The original was in Bengali, which is a very poetic language -- just the
opposite of the Marathi you will hear in Poona. If two or three
Maharashtrians are having a conversation, you will think that soon there
will be fight. The words are harsh -- the language seems to be very good for
fighting, but for no other purpose.
Bengali is just the opposite polarity. Even if two Bengalis are fighting,
you will think they are having a very sweet conversation, the language is so
sweet. The words of Marathi have corners; Bengali is very rounded -- no
corners. Even prose in Bengali sounds like poetry; it has a certain music in
it which no other Indian language has.
Rabindranath wrote GITANJALI first in Bengali, and for ten years the world
remained absolutely unaware of it. Then, just an accidental suggestion by a
friend: "Why don't you translate it into English?" -- and he tried.
He was dissatisfied with the original Bengali, but he was more dissatisfied
with the translation. Because there are a few nuances to every language
which are not translatable. Particularly a language like Bengali is almost
impossible to translate word to word. You can translate, but the sweetness,
the quality of music in each word... from where you can bring it? Still, he
got the Nobel prize for the translation. His friend said, "Now you must be
satisfied."
He said, "I am more dissatisfied than ever. This shows that humanity is not
yet mature enough to understand poetry. These are my failures, these poems
of GITANJALI. I have saved them after many, many efforts. I became tired,
and felt that perhaps something that is in my heart cannot be brought into
words. The best I could do I did, but in my own eyes it was a failure, at
the best, a very good failure. It can deceive everybody else, but it cannot
deceive me."
This is the experience of all great geniuses -- in every direction, in every
dimension.
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