Tales From India

Tagore and C.R. Das

Chitta Ranjan Das was earning so much money, but he gave up his law practice to defend Sri Aurobindo. When Sri Aurobindo was in jail, Sri Krishna came to Sri Aurobindo and said, “Give all responsibility to C.R. Das. You will not give your advice. He is the one I have chosen to release you from jail.”

C.R. Das gave up everything. Day in and day out he worked so hard, dedicating his life to Sri Aurobindo. He gave a momentous speech about Sri Aurobindo on the day of his release from jail and said that his voice would echo and re-echo. Such a powerful message he gave!

Then C.R. Das went into politics. He came to see Sri Aurobindo. They had been such good friends. Sri Aurobindo said, “Politics and spirituality do not go together. Give up politics if you want to realise God.”

C.R. Das could not give up politics. This is human life! Sri Aurobindo was like the ocean in terms of God-realisation, but C.R. Das went to another spiritual Master who was perhaps like a few drops of the ocean. That spiritual Master was absolutely nothing in comparison to Sri Aurobindo’s spirituality, intellect and vastness of mind.

C.R. Das was also a poet, but Tagore was infinitely, infinitely better than C.R. Das as a poet. Again, C.R. Das was such a great figure. Millions of people gathered together for his funeral and cremation.

When C.R. Das passed away, his devotees went to Tagore and begged him, “Please say something. Now he has passed away, and we are swimming in the sea of grief.”

Tagore dived deep within and wrote two immortal lines in Bengali. The meaning is:

With thee came down the immortal breath.

This thou booned us with thy body’s death.

C.R. Das’ devotees quoted Tagore’s words everywhere.

3 June 2002

Sri Chinmoy Centre

From:Sri Chinmoy,Depend on Grace, Agni Press, 2023
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/dg