ATOMS’ RING DANCE

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 13 September 1930, Page 9

ATOMS’ RING DANCE

The World of a Mystic

OIR. .Rabindranath Tagore, clad in a white robe covered by a gown- of black silk, lectured —or rather broke inito poetrv —at Arlosh Hall, nvhen. delivering the first of his Hibbert lectures on “The Religion of Man.” says til'd “Daily Telegraph.” Tracing man’s evolution and' the development of .the “Divine, principle” of unity, he said: '‘‘The light, as the radiant, energy of creation, started; the ring-dunce of the atoms in a diminutive sky, and 1 also the dance of the stars in, the lonelv vast theatre of time and

space. “The planets come out of their bath of fire! and bask in, the sun for ages. They were the thrones of the gigantic Inert, dumb and desolate, which knew not the meaning of its own blind destiny, and majestically# frowned on a future’ when, its er.vn monarchy would be menaced.

“Then came the time when life was brought into the. arena, in the tiniest jit tie monocyole of a cell. With its gift of growth, and its power of adaptation. it faced the ponderous enormity of things and contradicted 1 the unmeaning ness of their bulk. '“.But the miracle of creation did noc stop there, in this isolated spark of life launched! on. a lonely voyage to the Uivkown. The multitude of ecus were bound together into a larger unity, not their aggregation, hut their marvellous quality of inter-relationship maintaining a perfect co-ordination of functions. This is the creative principle of unity, the Divine mystery of existence. that baffles- all analysis.

“The larger co-operative units eculd Obtain a greater freedom of seif-expres-sion. and they began to form and develop in their 'bodies new ergons- of power, new instruments of efficiency. But while evolution continues on the physical plane, its range is limited.

“Before the chapter ended, man appeared. He turned the course of his evolution from an indefinite march of physical aggrandisement to a freedom of a more subtle perfection. The Spirit of Life in man surrendered some important parts of her sovereign rights to his mind, which minimised the passive processes of his evolution in favour of an active adjustment of selfdetermination.

“Since then the evolution of his limbs has been carried on further outside his own body; for the telescope which he uses does not encumber his skull, and he is not compelled to carry an added mass of muscles and nerves iii the shape of engines and electric wires

This has made possible liis progress to become unlimited,, and has enabled him to realise the boundless in his power. “The most perfect outward expression of the Divine principle of unity — that of the neater inter-relationship revealed in the evolution of the multicellular life—has been attained by man, in his body. But wliat is most important of all is the fact that man has also attained this relationship outside his bodily system.

"Man misses himself in isolation; his larger and truer self is found in his wide human relationships. His multicellular body is born and it dies; his 'multi-personal humanity is immortal. In this ideal of human unity he realised the eternal in his life, and the boundless in his love. The unity itself becomes not a mere subjective idea, but a living truth.

"Whatever name may be given to it, and by whatever form symbolised, th® consciousness of this unity is spiritual, and mail's effort to be true to it is his religion. ’'