(A transcript of the conversation between Rabindranath Tagore and
Professor Albert Einstein on 14th July, 1930, at the latter's residence
in Kaputh)
Einstein : Do you believe in the Divine as isolated from the world?
Tagore : Not isolated. The infinite personality of Man comprehends the
Universe. There cannot be anything that cannot be subsumed by the human
personality, and this proves that the truth of the Universe is human
truth. I have taken a scientific fact to explain this. Matter is
composed of protons and electrons, with gaps between them, but matter
may seem to be solid without the links in spaces which unify the
individual electrons and protons. Similarly humanity is composed of
individuals, yet they have their interconnection of human relationship,
which gives living unity to man's world. The entire universe is linked
up with us, as individuals, in a similar manner - it is a human
universe. I have pursued this thought through art, literature and the
religious consciousness of man.
Einstein : There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe
-the world as a unity dependent on humanity, and the world as a reality
independent of the human factor.
Tagore : When our universe is in harmony with man, the eternal, we know it as
truth, we feel it as beauty.
Einstein : This is the purely human conception of the universe.
Tagore : There can be no other conception. This world is a human world - the
scientific view of it is also that of the scientific man. Therefore, the
world apart from us does not exist; it is a relative world, depending
for its reality upon our consciousness. There is some standard of reason
and enjoyment which gives it truth, the standard of the Eternal Man
whose experiences are through our experiences.
Einstein : This is a realization of the human entity.
Tagore : Yes, one eternal entity. We have to realize it through our emotions
and activities. We realized the Supreme Man who has no individual
limitations through our limitations. Science is concerned with that
which is not confined to individuals, it is the impersonal human world
of truths. Religion realizes these truths and links them up with our
deeper needs; our individual consciousness of truth gains universal
significance. Religion applies values to truth, and we know this truth
as good through our own harmony with it.
Einstein : Truth, then, or beauty is not independent of man?
Tagore : No.
Einstein : If there would be no human beings any more, the Apollo of Belvedere
would no longer be beautiful.
Tagore : No!
Einstein : I agree with regard to this conception of Beauty, but not with regard
to Truth.
Tagore : Why not? Truth is realized through man.
Einstein : I cannot prove that my conception is right, but that is my religion.
Tagore : Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony which is in the Universal
Being, Truth the perfect comprehension of the Universal mind. We
individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through
our accumulated experiences, - through our illumined consciousness -
how, otherwise, can we know Truth?
Einstein : I cannot prove that scientific truth must be conceived as a truth
that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I
believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states
something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of
man. Anyway, if there is a reality independent of man, there is also a
truth relative to this reality; and in the same way the negation of the
first engenders a negation of the existence of the latter.
Tagore : Truth, which is one with the Universal Being, must essentially be
human; otherwise whatever we individuals realize as true can never be
called truth, at least the truth which is described as scientific and
which only can be reached through the process of logic, in other words,
by an organ of thoughts which is human. According to Indian philosophy
there is Brahman, the absolute Truth which cannot be conceived by the
isolation of the individual mind or described by words but can only be
realized by completely merging the individual in its infinity. But such
a truth cannot belong to science. The nature of truth which we are
discussing is an appearance, that is to say, what appears to be true to
the human mind and therefore is human, and may be called Maya or
illusion.
Is
the world we see around us real or a mere appearance? If it is an
appearance is there a reality behind it? Is that reality divine and
what is its relationship with the world? Can man know that reality
that transcends the sensible world? Is the knowledge we acquire
about the physical world through science valid? These questions have
been debated by man since he first began to philosophize. It has not
been settled, nor is it likely to be settled once for all to every
body's satisfaction. It is however intriguing to know that these
very questions came up for discussion during the meeting of two
great men - Rabindranath and Einstein. And it was Einstein who
started it by asking at the beginning whether the poet believed in
the Divine and what according to him was His relationship with the
world. Why, of all things, Einstein asked this question?
Rabindranath became world famous after he received the Nobel prize
in 1913 - a time when the Colonial powers of the West were on the
brink of a global holocaust, the First World War, which had its
origin in their unprecedented material prosperity from industrial
revolution and merciless exploitation of the Afro-Asian countries
and their arrogance and insatiable greed. The Western man, so long
highly optimistic about his material civilization, grew skeptic
about it. Did he seek an answer to his doubts in the works of the
poet? The Geetanjali or the Song-offerings of Rabindranath came as a
message of hope and consequently he was looked upon more as a
God-intoxicated devout man than as a poet. It is very relevant that
the young English soldier-poet, Wilfred Owen, who got killed in
France during this war was found to have carried a copy of the
Geetanjali on his person. Einstein's mind also seems to have been
full of these doubts and this seems to be the reason why his opening
question was about the poet's religious belief. Moreover Einstein
seems to have been occupying himself a great deal with the question
of religion at this time and shortly after this meeting he was to
publish an article, 'Religion and Science,' in the New York Times of
9th November,1930.
–
Kumud Biswas
March 14, 2004
Einstein : So according to your conception, which may be the Indian conception,
it is not the illusion of the individual but of humanity as a whole.
Tagore : In science we go through the discipline of eliminating the personal
limitations of our individual minds and thus reach that comprehension of
truth which is in the mind of the Universal Man.
Einstein : The problem begins whether truth is independent of our consciousness.
Tagore : What we call truth lies in the rational harmony between the
subjective and objective aspects of reality, both of which belong to the
super-personal man.
Einstein : Even in our everyday life, we feel compelled to ascribe a reality
independent of man to the objects we use. We do this to connect the
experiences of our senses in a reasonable way. For instance, if nobody
is in this house, yet that table remains where it is.
Tagore : Yes, it remains outside the individual mind but not the universal
mind. The table which I perceive is perceptible by the same kind of
consciousness which I possess.
Einstein : Our natural point of view in regard to the existence of truth apart
from humanity cannot be explained or proved, but it is a belief which
nobody can lack - no primitive beings even. We attribute to truth a
superhuman objectivity, it is indispensable for us, this reality which
is independent of our existence and our experience and our mind - though
we cannot say what it means.
Tagore : Science has proved that the table as a solid object is an appearance
and therefore that which the human mind perceives as a table would not
exist if that mind were naught. At the same time it must be admitted
that the fact that the ultimate physical reality is nothing but a
multitude of separate revolving centres of electric force, also belongs
to the human mind. In the apprehension of truth there is an eternal
conflict between the universal human mind and the same mind confined in
the individual. The perpetual process of reconciliation is being carried
on in our science, philosophy, in our ethics. In any case, if there be
any truth absolutely unrelated to humanity, then for us it is absolutely
non-existing. It is not difficult to imagine a mind to which sequence of
things happens not in space but only in time like the sequence of notes
in music. For such a mind such conception of reality is akin to the
musical reality in which Pythagorean geometry can have no meaning. There is the reality of paper, infinitely different from the reality of
literature. For the kind of mind possessed by the moth which eats that
paper literature is absolutely non-existent, yet for man's mind
literature has a greater value of truth than the paper itself. In a
similar manner if there be some truth which has no sensuous or rational
relation to human mind, it will ever remain as nothing so long as we
remain human beings.
Einstein : Then I am more religious than you are!
Tagore : My religion is in the reconciliation of the Super-personal Man, the
universal human spirit, in my own individual being. This has been the
subject of my Hibbert Lectures, which I have called "The Religion of
Man."
Source:
(Published in the January, 1931, issue of Modern Review)
Boloji.com is owned and managed by
Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
