The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - by R.W. Emerson Institute, Jim Manley, Director - RWE.org

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON, MAY 25, 1803

MAY TWENTY-FIFTH

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON, MAY 25, 1803
______

Once
again Emerson wrestles with formulating the concept of ‘the one in the
many, the many in the one,’ the Hindu principle enunciated in the
Bhagavad Gita, which he was reading – – – and re-reading

Who
shall define to me an Individual? I behold with awe & delight many
illustrations of the One Universal mind. I see my being imbedded in it.
As a plant in the earth so I grow in God. I am only a form of him. He
is the soul of Me. I can even with a mountainous aspiring say, I am
God, by transferring me out of the flimsy & unclean precincts of my
body, my fortunes, my private will; & meekly retiring upon the holy
austerities of the Just & the Loving — upon the secret fountains of
Nature. That thin & difficult ether, I can also breathe. The mortal
lungs & nostrils burst & shrivel, but the soul itself needeth
no organs – it is all element & all organ. Yet why not always so?
How came the Individual thus armed and impassioned to parricide, thus
murderously inclined ever to traverse & kill the divine life? Ah
wicked Manichee! Into that dim problem I cannot enter. A believer in
unity, a seer of Unity, I yet behold two.

A Year With Emerson
A Year With Emerson by Richard Grossman
by Richard Grossman
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The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson