Rabindranath Tagore: Quotes about God

“O Woman, you are not merely the handiwork of God, but also of men; these are ever endowing you with beauty from their own hearts … You are one-half woman and one-half dream.”

Rabindranath Tagore

59
The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

Men , God , Beauty , Dreams

“Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God's dust is greater than your idol.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

51
Stray Birds (1916)

God

“Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to this idea of our unity with the infinite being.”

Rabindranath Tagore

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: Though the West has accepted as its teacher him who boldly proclaimed his oneness with his Father, and who exhorted his followers to be perfect as God, it has never been reconciled to this idea of our unity with the infinite being. It condemns, as a piece of blasphemy, any implication of man's becoming God. This is certainly not the idea that Christ preached, nor perhaps the idea of the Christian mystics, but this seems to be the idea that has become popular in the Christian west.
But the highest wisdom in the East holds that it is not the function of our soul to gain God, to utilise him for any special material purpose. All that we can ever aspire to is to become more and more one with God. In the region of nature, which is the region of diversity, we grow by acquisition; in the spiritual world, which is the region of unity, we grow by losing ourselves, by uniting. Gaining a thing, as we have said, is by its nature partial, it is limited only to a particular want; but being is complete, it belongs to our wholeness, it springs not from any necessity but from our affinity with the infinite, which is the principle of perfection that we have in our soul.

God , Idea , Teachers , Perfection

“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

77
Stray Birds (1916)

God

“God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man's hands.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

Source: Stray Birds

God , Flowers , Waiting

“I am willing to serve my country, but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.”

Rabindranath Tagore

Source: The Home and the World

God , Country

“God, the Great Giver, can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single land.”

Rabindranath Tagore

Jivan-smitri

God , Universe

“I touch God in my song
as the hill touched the far-away sea
with its waterfall.”

Rabindranath Tagore

42
Fireflies (1928)

God , Sea

“While God waits for his temple to be built of love, men bring stones.”

Rabindranath Tagore

41
Fireflies (1928)

Love , Men , God , Waiting

“Reason tells us that creation never can be perfectly happy. So long as it is incomplete it must put up with imperfection and sorrow. It can only be perfect when it ceases to be creation, and is God. Do our prayers dare go so far?”

Rabindranath Tagore

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

God , Perfection , Happiness

“God finds himself by creating.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

46
Stray Birds (1916)

God

“To the guests that must go, bid God's speed and brush away all traces of their steps.”

Rabindranath Tagore

45
The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

God , Speed

“That which transcends country, which is greater than country, can only reveal itself through one’s country. God has manifested his one eternal nature in just such a variety of forms… I can assure you that through the open sky of India you will be able to see the sun therefore there is no need to cross the ocean and sit at the window of a Christian church. … “I have nothing more to say,” answered Gora, “only this much I would add. You must understand that the Hindu religion takes in its lap, like a mother, people of different ideas and opinions, in other words, the Hindu religion looks upon man as man and does not count him as belonging to a particular party. It honours not only the wise but the foolish also and it shows respect not merely to one form of wisdom but to wisdom in all its aspects. Christians do not want to acknowledge diversity; they say that on one side is Christian religion and on the other eternal destruction, and between these two there is no middle path. And because we have studied under these Christians we have become ashamed of the variety that is there in Hinduism. We fail to see that through this diversity Hinduism is coming to realise the oneness of all. Unless we can free ourselves from this whirlpool of Christian teaching we shall not become fit for the glorious truths of Hindu religion.””

Rabindranath Tagore book Gora

Rabindranath Tagore, Gora, translated into English, Calcutta, 1961. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (2016). History of Hindu-Christian encounters, AD 304 to 1996. Chapter 13 ISBN 9788185990354 https://web.archive.org/web/20120501043412/http://voiceofdharma.org/books/hhce/

Wisdom , God , People , Truth

“God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.”

Rabindranath Tagore

25
Fireflies (1928)

Love , God

“Those who have everything but thee, my God, laugh at those who have nothing but thyself.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

226
Stray Birds (1916)

God

“Whenever a Muslim called upon the Muslim society, he never faced any resistance-he called in the name of one God ‘Allah-ho-Akbar’. On the other hand, when we (Hindus) call will call, ‘come on, Hindus’, who will respond? We, the Hindus, are divided in numerous small communities, many barriers-provincialism-who will respond overcoming all these obstacles? “We suffered from many dangers, but we could never be united. When Mohammed Ghouri brought the first blow from outside, the Hindus could not be united, even in the those days of imminent danger. When the Muslims started to demolish the temples one after another, and to break the idols of Gods and Goddesses, the Hindus fought and died in small units, but they could not be united. It has been provided that we were killed in different ages due to out discord. Weakness harbors sin. So, if the Muslims beat us and we, the Hindus, tolerate this without resistance-then, we will know that it is made possible only by our weakness. For the sake of ourselves and our neighbour Muslims also, we have to discard our weakness. We can appeal to our neighbour Muslims, `Please don't be cruel to us. No religion can be based on genocide' - but this kind of appeal is nothing, but the weeping of the weak person. When the low pressure is created in the air, storm comes spontaneously; nobody can stop it for sake for religion. Similarly, if weakness is cherished and be allowed to exist, torture comes automatically - nobody can stop it. Possibly, the Hindus and the Muslims can make a fake friendship to each other for a while, but that cannot last forever. As long as you don’t purify the soil, which grows only thorny shrubs you can not expect any fruit.”

Rabindranath Tagore

“Swamy Shraddananda’, written by Rabindranath in Magh, 1333 Bangabda; compiled in the book ‘Kalantar’.

God , Friendship , Age , Religion