Gitanjali: (Song Offerings):63

Summary and analysis

In “Gitanjali: (Song Offerings):63”, Rabindranath Tagore is grateful to God for gifting life to him in the vast universe, where 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 those people whom he did not know. God has brought the distant near, and he has converted a stranger into a brother. He thanks God for everything including fame, love, place, position, and recognition, which have made him a loveable person to everyone. This way God has placed him in everyone’s home by placing him in everyone’s heart.

The poet feels uncomfortable and uneasy when he has to leave his accustomed shelter as he forgets that all the changes take place according to the will of God, and the old resides in the new also with the presence of God. Here, the poet uses the word ‘accustomed shelter’ for this world of ignorance in which human beings are habituated to stay. The poet accepts God as an omnipresent and omnipotent power that resides in every object of nature and every form of life in the vast universe. Here he highlights the habit of human beings who feel pain and fear to leave their known place. Change is an inevitable truth of existence. The entire cosmos changes with time, but our senses have limitations. So we wish to have everything changeless as we are unaware of our capacity to go beyond our experience. According to Tagore, we are capable of perceiving every unknown entity among various known entities.

The poet believes in Indian philosophy, which talks about the cycle of human rebirth. It also says that living creatures have a soul, and they’re all part of the supreme soul. So, the poet believes that his soul is immortal, and after his death, he will leave his body, but his soul will move to another body as another being. He also believes that God will reside with him in every life. Throughout the journey of life and death, the divine is always there to support him as God knows him eternally. The poet regards him as the constant companion of his endless life.

🎥 Get a complete breakdown of Gitanjali 63 in this narrated video lesson.

When the poet associates with God, He embraces freedom in a thousand bonds of delight as God leads him to the way of enlightenment. The poet realizes the truth of divine immanence by God’s grace. Then, he realizes himself and finds that God is within him and everything in the vast universe is an expression of God. The poet says that in every life he has experienced the joy which perhaps is unfamiliar to him. Here, the word “unfamiliar” has an interesting connotation as after associating with God the poet acquires enlightenment as well as true knowledge of the unknown. So he always experiences joy within himself, which he finds hard to describe and, therefore unfamiliar.

The poet has requested God to accept his prayer so that he may not lose extreme happiness after getting the divine touch of God who manifests himself in various forms and shapes in the vast universe. The whole universe is regarded by Tagore as the expression of God. God is neither an abstraction, nor an incarnation, but an ever-present force and an all-pervasive influence. He is to be seen in the various forms of nature including humans. God is presented as existing among the simple, poor, and humble people. Here, Rabindranath Tagore glorifies ‘self’ in a wider and greater context so that it loses its independent existence and merges with the universal.

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Disclaimer: This content is intended for educational purposes and is based on insights from various educational resources and personal interpretation. The poem “Gitanjali” by Rabindranath Tagore is in the public domain.