nature and the human soul meet in union. Our only rites and ceremonies are self-sacrificing good works."
It is not only to such ancient and pure ideals that Rabindranath responds; he is keenly alive to all that is most noble in the ideals that here and now make themselves felt in our keen and tumultuous modern societies. Unlike the traditional Guru or master of India's earlier days, while he believes in aspiration, he believes also that the will, purified in aspiring, should translate its faculty into the material and actual.
As his philosophy expressed in Sādhanā declares, he looks to the constructive realisation of life; and his work for the younger generation has taken human form in the remarkable little community near Bolpur, where his ideas have had free egress. The realisation in action, which is an article of his faith, has there found its living fulfilment. Shanti Niketan was originally founded by his father, who had there a house, garden, mandir (small temple), library, and all conveniences for retirement and study.
In talking of his own schooldays, Rabindranath Tagore spoke with the feeling of a man who had suffered much and needlessly in his
