7 Rabindranath Tagore Quotes on Self

Rabindranath Tagore quotes on self

24. This 'I' of mine toils hard, day and night, for a home which it knows as its own. Alas, there will be no end of its sufferings so long as it is not able to call this home thine. Till then it will struggle on, and its heart will ever cry, 'Ferryman, lead me across.' When this home of mine is made thine, that very moment is it taken across, even while its old walls enclose it. This 'I' is restless. It is working for a gain which can never be assimilated with its spirit, which it never can hold and retain. In its efforts to clasp in its own arms that which is for all, it hurts others and is hurt in its turn, and cries, 'Lead me across'. But as soon as it is able to say, 'All my work is thine,' everything remains the same, only it is taken across. Where can I meet thee unless in this mine home made thine? Where can I join thee unless in this my work transformed into thy work? If I leave my home I shall not reach thy home; if I cease my work I can never join thee in thy work. For thou dwellest in me and I in thee. Thou without me or I without thee are nothing.

78. In love, at one of its poles you find the personal, at the other the impersonal. At one you have the positive assertion- Here I am; at the other the equally strong denial- I am not. Without this ego what is love? And again, with only this ego how can love be possible?

121. The burden of the self is lightened with I laugh at myself.

134. The meaning of our self is not to be found in its separateness from God and others, but in the ceaseless realisation of yoga, of union.

146. The tendency in modern civilization is to make the world uniform... Let the mind be universal. The individual should not be sacrificed.

149. The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and he has to wonder through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

162. To understand anything is to find in it something which is our own, and it is the discovery of ourselves outside us which makes us glad. This relation of understanding is partial, but the relation of love is complete. In love the sense of difference is obliterated and the human soul fulfills its purpose in perfection, transcending the limits of itself and reaching across the threshold of the infinite. Therefore love is the highest bliss that man can attain to, for through it alone he truly knows that he is more than himself, and that he is at one with the All.