The fifth poem from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali reads as a gentle request for nearness. The speaker asks for a single pause so they may sit by the side of the spiritual master. Work can wait. Tasks can be finished later. What matters first is presence. Without the sight of the master the heart finds no rest and labour stretches into a shoreless sea. In this simple contrast the poem offers a quiet spiritual insight. Action without grounding becomes exhaustion. Presence restores meaning.
The image of toil is important. Work itself is not rejected. It only loses its rhythm when it is cut off from its source. Sitting beside the spiritual master is not an escape from responsibility. It is a return to the centre from which right action flows. This is where the poem touches nonduality. Inner attention and outer labour are not opposed. When attention is restored work regains its shape and dignity.
Nature enters the poem as an ally in this pause. Summer arrives at the window with sighs and murmurs. Bees sing in the flowering grove. These are not decorations added for beauty alone. They signal a world that is already in harmony. The outer world mirrors the inward call to stillness. When the speaker slows down the world seems to speak more clearly. The universal spirit is not distant. It breathes through seasons and sound.
The poem introduces a different understanding of leisure. This leisure is not empty time or indulgence. It is described as silent and overflowing. Silence here is fullness rather than absence. Overflowing suggests abundance rather than lack. Sitting quietly before the spiritual master becomes an act of dedication. Life itself is offered not through effort but through attention.
Nonduality appears again in the gesture of sitting face to face. Teacher and seeker are not divided by distance. Nearness dissolves the sharp edges of separation. The moment of sitting is already a form of union. Guidance does not arrive only through instruction. It arrives through presence that steadies the heart and reorders the world.
For anyone listening to this poem today it can function as a small discipline. Pause for a moment. Set aside urgency. Allow sounds and light to enter awareness. Let the poem remind you that guidance often appears when striving softens. Sitting beside the spiritual master may be an inner act rather than a physical one. It is the choice to return to stillness where direction becomes clear.
In this way the poem transforms rest into devotion. It shows how a simple pause can reconnect life to its source. Work resumes later but it resumes differently. It carries the calm of that silent and overflowing leisure.
Arup K. Chatterjee 