Rabindranath Tagore Blew The Candle

Rabindranath, one of the greatest poets of this country, was living on a small houseboat. He used to live for months together on that houseboat; he loved living on the houseboat. It was a full-moon night and he was reading in his room, a small cabin, just by a small candlelight, and he was reading about aesthetics — what is beauty?

And the full moon outside, and the cuckoo calling from the distant shore, and the moon reflecting all over the lake, and the whole lake was silver…! It was a tremendously silent night, nobody around, except that cuckoo calling. Once in a while a bird would fly over the boat, or a fish would jump in the lake — and those sounds would deepen the silence even more. And he pondered over great books on aesthetics in search of the definition of what beauty is.

Tired, exhausted, in the middle of the night, he blew out the candle…and he was shocked, surprised. As he blew out the candle, the moonrays entered through the window, through the door, inside the cabin. That pale light of the candle had been keeping the moon out. Suddenly, he heard the cuckoo calling from the distant shore.

Suddenly, he became aware of the tremendous silence, the depth of the silence surrounding the boat. A fish jumped, and he came out…. He had never seen such a
beautiful night. A few white clouds floating in the sky, and the moon and the lake and the cuckoo calling…he was transported into another world.

He 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!”

Well, a small addition from my side. Unfortunately, we are blinded multifold in the realms of this unknowingly known world. The only thing which we can do is to do the right thing at the right time so that your vision is crystal clear and you atleast know where the candle is present, before blowing it out as Rabindranath Tagore did.