Gora

by Rabindranath Tagore

"If only you have faith, you will find joy in the austerity of your devotion.

"Nothing can become manifest unless it has limits," persisted Gora. "The Infinite has taken the help of form in order to manifest Himself, otherwise how could He be revealed? That which is unrevealed cannot attain perfection. The formless is fulfilled in forms just as thought is perfected in words."

that you alone are entitled to give vent to your fulminations against them, and the rest of us, on behalf of our forefathers, are quietly to submit to your indictment?"—it

"Brother, the goddess of my worship does not come to me enshrined in beauty. I see her where there is poverty and famine, pain and insult. Not where worship is offered with song and flower, but where life's blood is sacrificed. To me, however, it is the greatest joy that no element of mere pleasantness is there to seduce one;

To you I make only this request: come inside India, accept all her good and her evil: if there be deformity then try and cure it from within, but see it with your own eyes, understand it, think over it, turn your face towards it, become one with it. You will never understand if you stand opposed and, imbued to the bone with Christian ideas, view it from outside. Then you will only try to wound and never be of any service."