Gitanjali (Song Offerings):63 – Inspiring Summary & Deep Analysis

Gitanjali (Song Offerings) 63: A Quest for the Divine

In “Gitanjali (Song Offerings):63”, Rabindranath Tagore is grateful to God for gifting life to him in the vast universe. Through this gift, he can explore himself in different beautiful scenes to achieve happiness.

The poet offers his gratitude to God for bringing him into the universe and making him the friend of people he did not know. God has brought the distant near, and He has converted a stranger into a brother.

He thanks God for everything — fame, love, place, position, and recognition — which have made him a lovable person to everyone. In this way, God has placed him in everyone’s home by placing him in everyone’s heart.

Change and God’s Will in Gitanjali (Song Offerings):63

The poet feels uncomfortable and uneasy when he has to leave his accustomed shelter. He forgets that all changes take place according to the will of God, and that the old also resides in the new through His presence.

Here, the poet uses the phrase “accustomed shelter” to describe this world of ignorance in which human beings are habituated to stay. He accepts God as an omnipresent and omnipotent power that resides in every object of nature and every form of life in the vast universe.

He also highlights the human tendency to feel pain and fear when leaving a known place. Change, however, is an inevitable truth of existence. The entire cosmos changes with time, but our senses are limited. So, we wish to have everything remain changeless, unaware of our capacity to go beyond our experience.

According to Tagore, we are capable of perceiving every unknown entity among various known entities.

Belief in Immortality and Rebirth in Gitanjali 63

The poet believes in Indian philosophy, which speaks of the cycle of human rebirth. It teaches that living creatures have souls, and all are part of the supreme soul.

Therefore, the poet believes his soul is immortal. After death, he will leave his body, but his soul will move to another body as another being. God, he believes, will always reside with him in every life.

Throughout the journey of life and death, the divine is always there to support him, for God knows him eternally. Thus, Tagore regards God as the constant companion of his endless life.

Divine Immanence and Joy

When the poet associates with God, he embraces freedom in a thousand bonds of delight as God leads him to the path of enlightenment.

He realizes the truth of divine immanence through God’s grace. This realization helps him discover that God is within him, and that everything in the vast universe is an expression of God.

The poet also says that in every life he has experienced joy that often feels unfamiliar. This “unfamiliar” joy comes from enlightenment and true knowledge of the unknown, received through divine association.

Thus, he always finds joy within himself — a joy that is difficult to describe, and therefore unfamiliar.

Prayer and Self in the Universal

The poet requests God to accept his prayer so that he may never lose the extreme happiness that comes from divine touch. God manifests Himself in various forms and shapes throughout the universe.

For Tagore, the whole universe is the expression of God. He is not an abstraction or an incarnation, but an ever-present force and all-pervasive influence. God is to be seen in every form of nature, including human beings.

Finally, God is presented as existing among the simple, poor, and humble. Tagore glorifies the ‘self’ in a broader context, so that it loses its independent existence and merges with the universal.