Soulful Poetry for Humanity

I once wrote a chapter compiling the political ideas contained in Goswami Tulsidas’ rendition of the saga of Shri Ram. Much later, I came to see that any effort to grasp such an epochal song through theory reduces it to what it was never meant to be. A work born of inward surrender cannot be contained within conceptual frames. Humanity needs soulful poetry more than theory, not because theory is without value, but because poetry speaks from a depth where the self does not assert itself. The great souls who immerse themselves in singing the essence of life serve humanity more profoundly than any theoretician, for they do not explain life; they become its voice.

Poetry may also cause irreparable harm unless poets become poetry itself, without any desire for glory or even the inward satisfaction of having created. The way it may be rendered is as it was by the Goswami. His songs flow from his heart as an outpouring of gratitude toward the Creator and of reverence for every being and thing in creation, permeated by unbounded love, without any sense of pride, vanity, or self-assertion. Such poets do not stand above their creation; rather, they sing as human beings in such inward anonymity that no creator remains separate from the song. Only then does poetry elevate rather than intoxicate. When we recite Goswami’s Ramcharit, we immerse ourselves in divinity, discover our own soul in its literary genius, and hear a voice so free of self that it awakens the human within us.

Niraj Kumar Jha