LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY

 

          LOVE’S  PHILOSOPHY

The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the ocean;  

The winds of heaven mix forever.

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one another’s being mingle---

Why not I with thine?

 

See! The mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:-

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

 

            This is a love poem by the English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). The poet wants to convince the lady whom he loves that “Nothing in the world is single”.  There is a divine law of pairing and combining. Fountains get mingled with rivers and rivers get mingled with the ocean. Waves clasp one another. A sister flower will not be forgiven if it disdains its brother flower. The sunlight of the sky clasps the earth.  Likewise the moonbeams kiss the sea. All these kissings in nature are according to love’s philosophy which governs all beings.  But the poet seems to be unhappy because her lady love is not paired with him. “What are all these kissings worth/If thou kiss not me? “ He asks: If “All things by a law divine/in one another’s being mingle/Why not I with thine?”

 

            What Shelley wants to convey is that the philosophy of love is a philosophy of marriage. It is a philosophy of coming together with a bond of mutual love, not of remaining aloof with an attitude of aloofness.

                        ********

 

G. R. Kanwal

30^th September 2023      

THE RAINBOW

 

THE  RAINBOW

My heart leaps up when I behold

A Rainbow in the sky :

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die !

The Child is Father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

 

This very short poem is by English romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770—1850). He is the only poet who is most famous as Nature poet of England.

 

As this poem reveals he was born with a love for nature and remained so not only till his manhood but also aspired to remain a lover of nature throughout his life. 

According to his personal belief Nature is not only a source of wisdom but also of health, beauty, physical grace and mental tranquility. People who have  natural piety in them  show a lot of respect for God and religion.    

 

He suggested that love for Nature should start as soon as a child is born. Man is a finished product of his childhood. His personality is shaped by his childhood activities.  This is what he wants to convey through the line “The child is Father of the Man”. 

 

Modern psychologists also agree with Wordsworth.   They too believe that “Man creates himself” or “The child is the constructor and maker of the adult.”

 

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G.R. Kanwal

28^th September 2023        

                                                               

THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES

 

THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES     

The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies

With the dying sun.

 

The mind has a thousand eyes

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

 

            This very short poem by the British poet Francis William Bourdillon (22 March 1852 -- !3 January 1921) is quite famous due to the significance of its central idea.

 

The night has a thousand eyes and the day has but one.  The eyes of the night are the stars of the sky.  They emit light when the sky is clear. Against their  large number of a thousand eyes, the day has only one eye ,  the sun.

 

When compared the two, the massive light of one sun is far greater than the combined light of a thousand stars. It means it is the natural capacity of an object which matters, not its physical number.

 

In the second illustration of his idea, Bourdillon compares the mind with the heart, The former has a thousand eyes symbolizing non-vital thoughts  which are totally  outweighed by the single vital idea of  life-sustaining love of the heart.

                                                *******

G.R. Kanwal

27^th September 2023

                                                              

 

Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

 

Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

 

         

Say not the struggle naught availeth

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not , nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

 

If hopes were dupes , fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon, smoke conceal’d,

Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,

And, but for you possess the field.

 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

 

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly !

But backward, look, the land is bright !

 

This is a most famous poem by Arthur Hugh Clough (1819—1861}. The theme is belief and disbelief, hope and despair about the results of human efforts and struggle. 

 

Pessimists think that their struggle has gone waste. There has been no change in the existing situation. But,  according to the poet, this is an incorrect assessment. The signs of success in any adventure are spread over a large area , as about soldiers’ victory  in a  large battle field or the success of the breaking waves in the vast sea.

The whole success is not concentrated at one place.  It is spread over.  If there is no gain at one spot, there is a lot of it at another.

 

Clough gives a very brilliant example of the rising sun:

                       

And not by eastern windows only,

                        When daylight comes, comes in the light;

                        In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly !

                        But westward, look, the land is bright !

 

                                    **********

 G.R.Kanwal

26^th September 2023

 

 

     

HE PRAYETH BEST, WHO LOVETH BEST

 

HE PRAYETH BEST, WHO LOVETH BEST

            O Wedding Guest ! this soul hath been

            Alone on a wide , wide sea;

            So lonely ‘twas, that God himself

            Scarce seemed there to be

 

            O sweeter than the marriage feast ,

            ‘Tis sweeter far to me,

            To walk together to the kirk

            With a goodly company!—

 

            To walk together to the kirk,

            And all together pray

While each to his great Father bends,

Old men, and babes, and loving friends,

And youths and maidens gay !

 

Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding Guest !

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast

 

He prayeth best , who loveth best

All things both great and small,

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.”

These poetic lines are extracted from a long poem entitled The Rime of the Ancient Mariner written by the British romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834).

 

The poem tells the story of a sailor (the old mariner)  who shoots a friendly albatross , cursing himself and his crew. As punishment, he is forced to wear the bird around his neck, making  it a symbol of sinful burden and lifelong repentance. 

 

Coleridge makes this story a universal issue of religious preferences . Is it not spiritually better to attend a prayer meeting in a church with ‘”ld men, and babes, and loving friends, and youths and maidens gay”  than to join a wedding party with some other guests  for routine physical pleasure.

The mariner is the hero of the poem. He has suffered from extreme agony and loneliness after the shooting of the friendly albatross.

 

God’s perfect prayer demands universal love for both man and bird and beast .  His best prayer is not for some things  but for all the things whether they are great or small  for they also are made by the same God who has made human beings and loves them.

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G.R.Kanwal

25^th September 2023

UNITY

 

 

 

                                                                                UNITY

The sense of fellowship is grown

A radiant mystery

The dark is shot with light; the stone

Is light unto the eyes that see. 

 

No more the wild confused main

Is tossed about with storms of fear

The sea is singing; and the rain

Is music to the ears that hear.

            This two-stanza poem is written by British poet and novelist  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (23 September 1861—25 August 1907). British poet S.T. Coleridge (1772-1834)  was among her relatives.

 

UNITY is a philosophical poem.  The central idea is that hard and soft, dark and light, song and storm co-exist in the same object. A hard piece of stone is soft to the eye which looks at it.  The stormy sea is not stormy and fearsome on each side; there is another side where you find rain singing a song and pleasing you.

So look at things not partially but fully. They are both noise and music, hope and despair, light and darkness.  We  shall be wiser if we  look at both the sides of a situation  in a unified way.   

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G. R. Kanwal

24t  September 2023

                                               

           

 

 

  

 

BERTRAND RUSSELL SAID

 

BERTRAND RUSSELL SAID

“We need a morality based upon love of life, upon pleasure in growth and  positive achievement. A man should be regarded as “ good “ if he is happy, expansive, generous and glad when others are happy. A man who acquires a fortune by cruelty or exploitation should be regarded as at present what is called an “immoral” man and he should be so regarded even if he goes to church regularly.”

            Born on 18 May 1872, Russell passed away on 2 February 1970. He was a great contributor to the subjects of logic and the philosophy of mathematics. He was one of the foremost philosophers of the 20^th century, wrote copiously on  common  issues, got Nobel Prize in Literature  in 1950, “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he  championed humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.” To all intents and purposes, he was a realist, not an idealist, and is  known to have  changed his point of view more than once.

            According to Russell the answer to the question if there is any connection between a nation’s philosophy and its other activities, the answer depends upon whether its men of action are willing to become philosophers and whether its philosophers are willing to become its political handicraftsmen. As for Russell himself, he was unwilling to abandon his freedom  of thinking independently about all issues concerning mankind.   

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G.R.Kanwal

18^th September 2023       

 

 

 

A GREAT QUOTATION

 

                   A GREAT QUOTATION

The great quotation given below  is by the Indian statesman, philosopher, and  prominent author Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (1888-1975). He became George V Professor of Philosophy in Calcutta University in 1921, the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at Oxford University in 1952, India’s first Vice President in 1952 , President of India from 1962 to 1967 and received Bharat Ratna the highest Indian civilian award in 1954.

The quotation that follows is from his book Living With A Purpose(1977).  It is about the lives of fourteen  great personalities including Guru Nanak, Kalidasa, Raja Rammohan Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Acharya Jagdis Bose, Acharya Shri Tulsi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Lala Lajpat Rai, Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, Motilal Nehru, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Balgangadhar Tilak.       

Defining true greatness, Dr. Radhakrishnan writes: 

“The truly great are not the men of wealth, of possessions, not men who gain name and fame, but those who testify to the truth in them and refuse to compromise whatever be the cost. They are determined to do what they consider to be right. We may punish their bodies, refuse them comforts, but we cannot buy their souls , we cannot break their spirits. Whoever possesses this invulnerability of spirit even to a little extent deserves our admiration.”

                                    **********

G. R. Kanwal

16^th September 2023

 

     

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

 

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once; and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true;

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you

And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars

Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead,

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

            This is one of the most famous lyrical poems of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939).  It is addressed to Maud Gonne, a lady whom he loved madly, wanted to marry, proposed twice but in vain. She married another man, saddened Yeats who could not forget her throughout his life and tells her in this poem that now when she is old and her physical charm  has vanished and there is no romantic vigour in her  body, her  lovers of youthful times, both true and false, have disappeared. But he, the poet, who instead of  loving  her physical charm,  t loved her pilgrim soul, is still there.

 

            The poem talks of the spiritual side of love which is better judged in old age     

 when physical attractions of the body disappear and a lover  needs a faithful companion to be still there with the ‘sorrows of her changing face.’

 

            Yeats won Nobel Prize for literature in 1923.  He was also a sort of  mystic who introduced Rabindranath Tagore to Europe and also wrote a Preface to the English version of his Gitanjali. Tagore was awarded Nobel Prize for literature in 1913.

 

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G.R.Kanwal

15^th September 2023

BEAUTY

 

BEAUTY

In the following poem called ‘Beauty’ the English poet and writer John Edward Masefield (1878-1967) who was also Poet Laureate from 1930 to 1967 describes the exemplary beauty of dawn and sunset, the beauty of windy hills, solemn beauty of Spanish tunes, the April beauty of Daffodil flowers, the beauty of singing blossoms and chanting sea, the beauty of strange lands under the arched white sails of a ship, but has not found any one of them comparable to the loveliest things of beauty God has shown to him in his beloved’s voice, hair, eyes and the sweet  red curve of her lips.

Beauty, as it is said in a proverb, lies in the eyes of the beholder. Here, the human beauty of a ladylove is described by her lover as incomparable to any other object.   

Masefield’s poem runs  as follows:

I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills

Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain :  

I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,

Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sales of ships;

But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me,

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.

                                                *******

G. R. Kanwal

13^th September 2023

THE COUNTRY FAITH

 

          THE COUNTRY FAITH

“The Country Faith” is a short poem written by Norman R. Gale (1862-1942). It is about the everlasting faith of village people in God for the rain which produces corn that nourishes their life. 

            The text of the poem reads as follows:

 

Here is the country’s heart,

Where the grass is green,

Life is the same sweet life

As it e’er hath been.

 

Trust in a God still lives,

And the bell at morn

Floats with a thought of God

O’er the rising corn.

 

God comes down in the rain,

And the crop grows tall---

This is the country faith,

And the best of all.

 

            The poem is in fact intended to show the difference between citizens and villagers. The former due to the impact of science and the faith in machinery have abandoned their erstwhile eternal faith in God for rain which is the symbol of life. This has not happened in countryside, The people there still believe that rain is the gift of God. It has always been so and will remain so.

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G.R.Kanwal

11^th September 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

INDIA VS INDIA

 

INDIA VS INDIA

The paragraph which I am gratefully quoting below has been taken from “India Through The Ages” a book jointly written by J. V.Furtado and Dr. K. C. Khanna for the history students of schools and colleges in India. 

This book was published in 1961,  It means the paragraph in question belongs to the 1950’s  of India.  My interest arose because the issues it touched then are being touched today in almost identical language,

The said paragraph reads as follows:-

“History is the moving pageant of human endeavour. Since independence India has made great efforts and achieved remarkable successes in many sections of national life. The most marked traits of this accomplishment have been self-reliance and the urge to play a worthy part in the great comity of the world. Freed from the shackles of dependence the country has realized its native genius and found self-expression so that it may shape its own future in terms of its own needs and make contribution to the progress of mankind in terms of its own traditions and cultural heritage.”

                                                            *********

G.R.Kanwal

10^th September 2023

 

 

 

 

TRULY GREAT

 

TRULY GREAT

My walls outside must have some flowers,

My walls within must have some books;

A house that’s small; a garden large,

And in it leafy nooks.

 

A little gold that’s sure each week ;

That comes not from my living kind,

But from a dead man in his grave,

Who cannot change his mind.

 

A lovely wife, and gentle too;

Contented that no eyes but mine

Can see her many charms, nor voice

To call her beauty fine.

 

Where she would in that stone cage live,

A self-made prisoner with me;

While many a wild bird sang around,

On gate, on bush, on tree.

 

And she sometimes to answer them,

In her  far sweeter voice than all ;

Till birds, that loved to look on leaves,

Will doat on a stone wall.

 

With this small house, this garden large,

This little gold, that lovely mate,

 With health in body, peace at heart---

Show me a man more great.

 

                        This is a short but great poem by the tramp English poet William Henry Davies (1871-1940) who with another remarkable poem LEISURE became very famous. Here, the poet says that greatness of a family does not lie in having a big house. A small house with some books, a large garden,  many flowers and birds, a small regular inflow of inherited income, and a perfectly loyal beautiful  wife whose sweet voice can enchant even proud songbirds make a man  and his family truly great.  Add to these limited  possessions a healthy body and a peaceful heart as true components of human greatness.

 

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G. R. Kanwal

8^th September 2023                                                   

                                                                       

HUMAN VALUES

 

          HUMAN VALUES

Values are codes of behaviour, principles, norms, standards, morals, ethics, etc.  Each department of life has its own values like business values, social values, commercial values, political values, religious values, etc. Values strengthen one’s moral behaviour in the stream of life in which one is professionally or otherwise engaged. Human values are multiple values and have its sources from various subjects.  Look at a little bit of their variety:

            Love, friendliness, fellow-feeling, good neighbourliness, sympathy, loyalty,  honesty, truth, gratitude,  tolerance, compassion, forgiveness, charity, nobleness, benevolence, patriotism,  philanthropy, Godliness, etc . These are some of the chosen values as  bring out  the fundamental goodness of human beings.

            Here is a description of LOVE  as a human value:

            LOVE is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens and ennobles the character , gives a higher motive and a nobler aim to every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, noble, and courageous; and the power to  love truly and devotedly is the noblest gift with which a human being can be endowed; but it is a sacred fire that must not be burned to idols.  English author Miss Jewsbury (1800-1833).  
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G. R. Kanwal

7th September 2023        

 

 

NEW FACTS ABOUT TREES

 

NEW FACTS ABOUT TREES

            As told by Osho (Indian Godman, mystic and  philosopher) also known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931-1990), it has now been scientifically proved that even plants know who  are their friends and who are their enemies.

They have developed something like a cardiogram which is attached to the tree, and if a man comes with the idea to cut a branch of the tree or to uproot the tree ---he just has the idea ---suddenly the graph that is being made by the cardiogram on the tree starts trembling. It loses the rhythm it had and  you can see how fear has disturbed the peace of  the tree.    

            The tree has also telepathic sensitivity, so  when the gardener comes with his warmth and love, the graph takes no time to  become harmonious because now the tree is no longer fear-stricken.   

            Earlier Indian scientist Sir Jagadish Chndra Bose (1858-1937) had practically proved that plants have hearts, and metals have muscles. They ,too , are affected by  administration poisons and as remedies by antidotes.

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G. R. Kanwal

6^th September 2023                                                                                 

 

SOME VIEWS ABOUT TEACHERS

 

 

 

                             SOME VIEWS  ABOUT TEACHERS

1. Even a thousand teachers cannot take the place of a mother.
2. Great teachers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are now rare.
3. Teachers are nation builders; the real instruments of change.
4. The highest function of the teacher consists not so much in imparting knowledge as in stimulating the pupil in its love and pursuit.
5. The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions , but to kindle minds.
6. The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.
7. The best teacher is one who suggests rather than dogmatises , and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.
Let our teaching be full of ideas.  Hitherto it has been stuffed only with facts.

 POST SCRIPT

Today is 5^th day of September celebrated as Teacher’s day all over India in honour of the birthday of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (5^th September 1888 – 17^th April 1975). Dr. Radhakrishnan  was a great educationist, politician, statesman, philosopher and author.  His books like The Hindu View of Life, The Bhagavadgita, An Idealist View of life, East And West In Religion, Religion And Society,Recovery of Faith, The Principal Upanisads, Eastern Religions and Western Thought, etc., are masterpieces of world literature. He was President of India from 1962-1967. For his massive achievements in literature and statesmanship he won Bharat Ratna Award in 1954.

                                                            ******

G. R. Kanwal           

 

THE MOON

 

THE MOON

Here is a very short but exceedingly beautiful poem “The Moon” written by William Henry Davies, a Welsh poet and writer, who spent most of his life as a tramp or hobo in the United Kingdom and the United States.  This negative aspect of his life did not prevent him from becoming a popular poet of his time with such great poems as Leisure, Come, Let us Find, A Fleeting Passion, A Plain Life and Truly Great.

A tramp is a homeless person who goes from place to place and does no regular work; likewise a hobo is an unemployed worker who wanders from place to place.

Davies was born on July 3, 1871 at Newport, Wales and died on September 26, 1940, at Nailsworth, England.

            His poem “The Moon” reads as follows:

Thy beauty haunts me, heart and soul,

Oh thou fair Moon, so close and bright;

Thy beauty makes me like the child,

That cries aloud to own thy light :

The little child that lifts each arm,

To press thee to his bosom warm.

 

Though there are birds that sing this night

With thy white beams across their throats,

Let my deep silence speak for me

More than for them their sweetest notes :

Who worships thee till music fails

Is greater than thy nightingales.

                                                            *******

G. R. Kanwal

4th September 2023