Page:Rabindranath Tagore - A Biographical Study.djvu/151

 danger comes from the want of outward activity. Her thinkers despise the fields of power and of extension. Their intellect in its attempt to realise Brahma "works itself stone-dry," and their heart, seeking to confine him within its own outpourings, turns to emotion and neglects the stern bonds of law and the discipline of the real. These are the extremes on either side; for the truer philosophy of the east, as we find it in the Vedas and the Upanishads, does not neglect the natural fulfilment of the activity of nature. "Knowledge, power, and action are of his nature," says the Upanishads, and again, "By his many-sided activity, which radiates in all directions, does he fulfil the inherent wants of all his different creatures." Rabindranath, coming as a true intermediary between east and west, sees in the life of meditation and in the life of action the two principles at work which are as the poles of our being; and he ends with this characteristic prayer to the Worker of the Universe: