There is a parable in the Rig Veda concerning two birds - fast-bound companions - that are sitting on the same bough of a large berry tree. One of birds is feeding on the berries, gobbling down one after the other with great gusto, while the other looks on, neither wanting nor not wanting to eat, merely observing. It is the image of a kind of ultimate mutual relatedness, of the infinite being and the finite self. The delight of the bird which looks on is great, for it is pure and free, devoid of desire or appetite. Both of these birds are present in every human being - the appetitive individual that desires and goes about the business of life, and the unseen seer with its disinterested joy of vision. In Rabindranath Tagores interpretation, the behaviour of the two birds reveals to us that the act of seeing is more imaginative, more creative, more real than the act of knowing and having. The delight of the bird that looks on is greater than that of the bird that is busy with the stuff of maintaining the physical body. For a child, a tiger in a story narrated by his grandmother is a being of the creative imagination, more intimate and concretely living than the one he might come across as a beast of prey in the book of natural history. “Reality,” says the poet, “reveals itself in the emotional and imaginative background of our mind.” We feel it and therefore we know it - not the other way around. This feeling itself is a feeling of pure delight, making even a tragic drama enjoyable.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 03:24:22 +0000
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