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.”

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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.

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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.”

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G.R.Kanwal

10^th September 2023