Preaching creeds

              There are a large number of ideas about which we do not even know that they are inaccessible to us, only because we have grown too familiar with their names.

              Such is our idea of God.  We do not have to realize it in order to be made aware of it.  This is why it requires a great deal of spiritual sensitiveness to be able to feel the life-throb of God’s reality behind the vulgar callosity of words.  Things that are small naturally come to their limits for us, when they are familiar.  But the truth which is great should reveal its infinity all the more vastly when it is near to us.  Unfortunately, words that represent truth have not the same immensity of life as truth itself.  Therefore the words (and with them our attention and interest) become inert by constant handling, obscuring our faith underneath them without our being conscious of that tragic fact.

              This is the reason why men who are obviously religious are frequently more irreligious, in reality, than those who openly ignore religion.  Preachers and ministers of religion have made it their business to deal with God at every moment.  They cannot afford to wait until they (p.113) come in touch with Him.  They dare not acknowledge the fact that they have not done so.  Therefore they have to strain their minds into a constant attitude of God-Knowingness.  They have to delude themselves, in order to fulfil the expectations of others, or what they consider to be their duty.

              And yet the consciousness of God, like that of all other ideas, comes to us only with intense moments of illumination, of inspiration.  If we do not have the patience to wait for it, we only choke the path of inspiration with the debris of our conscious efforts.  Those who make it their business to preach God, preach creeds.  They lose their sense of distinction between these two.  Therefore their religion does not bring peace into this world, but conflict.  They do not hesitate to make use even of their religion for the propaganda of national self-seeking and boastfulness.

              You may wonder, in your mind, as to the reason of my brining up this topic in my present letter.  It is in connection with the same endless conflict within me between the poet and the preacher, one of whom depends for his mission upon inspiration and the other upon conscious endeavour.  Straining of consciousness leads insensitiveness, of which I am more afraid than anything else.  The preacher is the professional dealer in particular ideas.  His customers come at all hours of the day and put questions to him.  The answers, which he gets into the habit of producing, gradually lose their living quality, and his faith in his ideas runs the risk of being smothered under the deadness of his words.  I believe that such a tragedy is more common than people suspect, especially with those who are good and therefore are ever ready to sign their cheque of benefit for others without waiting to see if the cash has had time to accumulate in the bank.

              This makes me think that it is safe to be nothing (p.114) better than a mere poet.  For poets have to be true to their best moments and not to other peoples’ requirements.—New York, Jan., 8^th, 1921, in Rabindranath Tagore: Letters to a Friend,  Edited with Two Introductory Essays by C. F. Andrews, London, George Allen & Unwin Let, [1928] Reprinted 1929, pp. 113-115.