Closing its doors and windows
Hidden in a dark corner of the temple
Whom do you offer your devotion in secret?
Leave all your prayers and worship
Open your eyes and you will see
Your deity is not there
The shrine is empty.
He has gone to the fields
Where the plowman is plowing his land
The workman is making the roads
Breaking grounds, grinding stones
Day and night your god is toiling with them
His hands are dirty with dust
Change your devotee’s clean pious dress
Join your god who is toiling in the dust.
You seek freedom?
It is nowhere to be found
Even your god is not free
In an eternal bondage
With his creation he is eternally bound.
So leave aside your austere worship
Forget the offerings
Let your dress get soiled and torn
Sweat with your god
And that will be your devotion.
Transcreation of poem 119 - Bhajan pujan sadhan aradhana/samasta thak pore - from the collection Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore. Composed on 27th Asad, 1317 BS at Koya on the river Gorai, probably a very interior place in his estates in Eastern Bengal. Was it the philosophy of zamindar Rabindranath?
