Abstract: Contemporary interest in Nobelist Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is rooted in the relevance of his prescient views on universalism, nationalism, patriotism, and cosmopolitanism expressed in the beginning of twentieth century. In his novel The Home and the World (HW), Tagore grapples with a critically important question contemporary intellectuals pose today: is it possible to plead allegiance to the universal (global, the world) while still being true to the personal (local, the home)? Is it possible to celebrate the local while enlarging one's compass to incorporate the global? This thesis suggests that by bringing this debate all the way down to one's allegiance to self versus the other, Tagore in HW proposes that the harmony between the home and the world is contingent upon one's particular self-definition that incorporates both a material and a metaphysical construction in the idea of 'self.' Founding his views on the concepts of Hindu scriptures Tagore defines the metaphysical self as the universal or 'the Truth' and contrasts it with the self's material or ego-bound construction. Identifying 'the Truth' as heterogeneous and 'non-ethical' for Tagore, this essay concludes that ultimately Tagore pessimistically suggests that reconciling the home and the world, the local and the global, is far easier to do theoretically than to practice in reality.