Tagore On Definition Of Beauty-Osho Story

Anecdotes

oi-Priya Devi

By Priya Devi

Saturday, October 23, 2010, 12:55

Rabindranath Tagore took pleasure in living on a houseboat for months. Once on a full moon night, he was reading a book about aesthetics, trying to find out the definition of beauty.

A night when the splendour of nature was revealed in the cuckoo calling from the far off shore, the silvery moonlight spread all over the lake, with silence reigning except for the cooing of the cuckoo, and an occasional flight of a bird over the boat or a fish that jumped piercing the still waters. Tagore remained bent over his book searching for the definition of beauty.

As fatigue gripped him, he decided to rest and blew out the flame of the candle. A surprise awaited him, when he saw the rays of the moon infilterating through the windows and the door into his cabin. It then dawned on him that the candle light had kept the rays of the moon out. All of a sudden, he heard the call of the cuckoo.

Tagore suddenly became conscious of the surmounting silence. A fish then jumped and caused a splash. A few white clouds floated in the dark sky and Tagore was transported into a different world all together.

Tagore wrote in his diary, ““I am foolish! I have been searching in books for what beauty is, and beauty was standing outside my door, knocking on my door! I was looking for beauty, searching for beauty, with a small candle, and the small candlelight was keeping the moonlight outside." He wrote in his diary, "

It seems my small ego is keeping God out — the small ego, like a pale small candlelight, keeping the light of God outside. And he is waiting outside. All that I need to do is to close the books, blow out the candle of the ego and go out — AND SEE!"

Tagore actually realised the definition of beauty.

Osho points out the significance of emerging out of the cocoon of ego and to become aware of the bliss of the being.