Right to Create

Days pass on one after another. But within each heart there remains a painful feeling that possibly what should have happened has not happened. Many more things ought to have been accomplished. Men are constantly saying that he must attain and achieve what he is destined to. Till now he has been able to attain very little. That men can think in this way, distinguishes him from all other living beings. I have not been able to grow up into what I was destined to grow up into, is never comprehended by any living being other than man. God has sent men to this world with consciousness and an ability to build and create, seek and find, to experiment and invent, to explore and discover, and thereby express his humanism.

God has sent men to this world in a very helpless condition. A baby cow starts running around within a few hours after taking birth. Human babies take several months even to stand on his feet. But at the same time God has endowed men with immense ability to create, build and grow. He has not decorated our body with various colours like a peacock, but he has given us paints and brush to put colours anywhere we like, according to our wish. The Almighty wants to see that a being of immense strength and ability may emerge out of His creation of the human being. That is His wish. There lies His joy. He seeks to find total satisfaction out of His best creation. Man will create and man will build, and He will derive His ultimate satisfaction and delight out of it.

Men are destined to make all such arrangements himself to beautify this world further, to make his life worth living, to make this world a heavenly abode, thereby serving as the ultimate source of gratification for the Divine Soul. If men fail to do that, all His creative efforts become futile.

We, as human beings, are getting buried under the drudgery of everyday life. Daily habits have turned us into slaves in the hands of man-made destiny. The drums of man-made destiny keep on producing a dull, monotonous beating sound, for men to hear every moment. There is no tune in it. Borrowed thoughts, mimicry, artificiality etc. are engulfing us from all directions. Materialism is keeping us confined in dungeons.

In such a state His Divine Light finds no way to enter into our house. His grace is everywhere in this world, possibly except in our hearts, which we have saved for ourselves only.

His presence is everywhere in this world except possibly in our houses. There He won't come until we invite Him. From times immemorial, He is standing at our door-step asking for our permission to get in. Alas! We have always been so ignorant about this fact. He would love so much to enter into our houses. He has never asked for the best place to sit upon. He will be happy just if we can share our own seat with Him. In our entire house, we have managed to assign only a small place for Him. Let us recognize Him once for all. He is our friend, our guide, and our philosopher. Let us not frustrate one of the highest truths of this universe.

We cannot build or create on our own. We have to have His grace upon us to create something of everlasting value. We have to see our creations not only in the light of everyday use, but also in the light of eternity. We have to experience the eternal feeling and gain an everlasting lease of life. All our creations will become meaningful that day when we will be able to share our seat with Him. That would be the day of real celebration.

We have visited many a sacred places, we have performed complex rituals and religious ceremonies to seek glorification, and finally find a place in the heaven after death. But where is the heaven? There is no such place called heaven. It is up to us humans, to create our own heaven in this world.

But we alone cannot build our heaven. For that we need the help of God. He is also waiting for us. He has created everything on His own, except heaven. For that He also needs the help of human beings. Without us, His desire to create the heaven has remained incomplete. That is because we were too much engrossed with ourselves, and had failed to notice that God is waiting for us to help Him create the heaven. Working together with Him, we only have the right to create the heaven.

A day will come when all our accumulations will seem worthless. That day we will have to leave our throne for Him. Whatever we have created and accumulated in our lives, we have to give everything to Him, and again merge our souls with His Divine soul and make our human birth a success. We will realize that without Him, everything will turn into dust, and with his grace all our creations will collectively give birth to a place like heaven in this world.

Translation based on Bengali works of Rabindranath Tagore.

Also read : Religion is Simple

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