Chapter-III

The Doctrine Of Over- Soul

The soul which is above and high from other souls is called, The

Over-Soul. This is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent. God is the

Over-Soul. God is that supreme power who commands the entire

universe. As it is clear in the Bible that in the formation of human being it

took long time to make Adam. The theory of God, the creation of human

in the form of Adam is still endless. There is always one creator in which

the world exists.

Regarding this concept, Emerson was one who read almost all the

philosophies of the world and came to form his own religion. Religion no

doubt was his ancestral background. He was born with the Bible in his

hand. He was a man who strongly appreciated the well-known writer

Voltaire, who rightly viewed "If God made us in his image, we have

certainly returned the compliment."(130) His parents were both from the

holy field. His Aunt Mary Moody influenced him most. Emerson writes,

“The kind Aunt whose instruction effected my youth. She told me about

the virtues and values of ancestors. They have the clergy for many

generations and the piety of all and the eloquence of many is yet praise in

the Churches.” (140)

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In the year 1832, Emerson gathered some of the prominent

members of the second church to expound them some of his new

thoughts. He found his thoughts were unreasonable to believe that Jesus

has some significance at some extent and should not be admired all the

time. On preaching, as a Christian Minister, he viewed "It is the best part

of man I sometimes think that revolts most against his being a minister.

The difficulty is that we do not make a world of our own but fall in into

the institution that has already made.” (48) These events were diversified in

which Emerson was capable of altering his faith towards his own field.

After this Emerson describes, “This world is but a large turn? How old art

thou? How ready are you for death and immortality? The soul escapes to

God affrighted by the decays of the universes.” (50) Finally, Emerson

decided that he would no longer be a minister of the Lord's Supper as he

was divinely appointed. After 19th century conservatives started

considering that Emerson’s ideas on his own religion were diverting,

especially his denunciation in the Divinity School Address of Historical

Christianity for converting Jesus into demigod. As an Orientals or the

Greeks, he would describe Oasis or Apollo and about the miracles of

gospel which prove a supernatural mandate in terms of Christianity.

According to Emerson, God is an immanent and an indwelling

property of human being and his physical nature is not located in some

other worldly realm. In the view of Emerson knowledge of God in

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scholastic philosophy is maturing cognition, 'morning knowledge'. A

believer, a mind whose faith is unconsciousness is never disturbed

because other persons do not yet see the fact he sees. To make his

knowledge more wider, Emerson made books his friends and read Plato,

Socrates, Montagne, Machiavelli, Cardinal De Ritz and Adam Smith.

Emerson believed that he himself was only destroying, 'Idolatrous

propositions' which stood in the way of complete trust in God. In his

Address to the Divinity School, Emerson observed the man on whom the

soul descends through whom the soul speaks alone can teach the religious

ecstasy. His ideas towards religion had increased to such an extent that

the college authorities feared from him and believed that he was insane.

He told that Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts

all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us and as it has

appeared for ages, it is not a doctrine of the soul but an exaggeration of

the personal, the positive the rituals. It has dwelt with noxious

exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The eastern monarchy of

Christianity that indolence and fear have built the friend of man is made

the injurer of man. Emerson accepts at some extent that 'Jesus Christ

belonged to the true race of prophets.' He saw with open eye the mystery

of the soul. He saw that God incarnates himself in man and evermore

goes forth a new to take the possession of his world. Hudant Robert said

in the words of Emerson, “I am divine through me, God acts, through me

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speaks, would you see, God see me or see thee when thou also thickest as

a I now think.” (125)

Emerson modifies religious thought in such a disparate way that as

an individual he always had a query in his mind, which he was unable to

sort it out against official authority. The overall record of his life and

writing suggests that Emerson was always attracted towards true religion

and Asian spirituality that he appreciated most throughout his lifetime.

During his ministry, his allusions to God's fatherhood are perfunctory.

God is an authority within a life principle. The most pure and elevated

conception of which the mind is capable of in knowing the actual essence

of God. Later the whole idea of a personal God is oxymoronic. Emerson

deplores his ideas in obstinate Orientals that God is a petty Asiatic king.

There is the ambiguous relationship to eastern antiquities, a combination

of repulsion and fascination was slightly modified. Emerson expressed

his views on Asian concept of God and expressed his ideas in his Journal

A Paean To God in 1822:

I know of nothing more fit to conclude the remarks which have been made in the last pages that certain fine paean strains and proceed to quote lines from Sir William Jones translation entitled Narayena parts of which describes God only I perceive, God only I adore! From a Hindu perceptive God could only be Christian interpretations of the part of Jones.(206)

But this kind of bridging between the traditions was

precisely which attracted him to the certain fine paean strains.

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As a Minister, Emerson made the right liberal protestant points

about faith. Between 1823, he took notes from The Edinburgh Review on

India's Vast Goddry. In 1830, he found the title evidence of an interest in

Hinduism and Buddhism. He did read philosophic system by De Gerando

and noted the following, “Idealism a Primitive Theory, The Mahabharata

one of the sacred book in India.” (58) In 1837, Emerson lectured on so

many topics of religion which honours Confucius, The Vedas, The

Institute of Manu, Jesus and Plotinus as are the voices of pure reason.

Emerson's mature thought began to crystallize when he seized on the

ideas of God, when he found himself in the trauma due to his first wife’s

death. Agree with the view point of Coleridge's Theory of Reason and

The Magisterial Overview of the History of Philosophic System by Joseph

Marie De Gerando and Victor Cousin who seemed to confirmed himself

that the concept of Ancient Greeks and Indians consists that there is a

unity of mind and soul in the form of varied individual. The most

important quality occurs in Emerson is that being admired with

Hinduism, he never learned Sanskrit, never visited a temple perhaps

never ever met a practicing Hindu or Buddhist. But he purely managed to

orientalized himself well enough. As an American he was the one who

fully realized the philosophical significance of Asian thought. As a youth

Emerson mainly imbibed the cartoon images of oriental despotism

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strange chants, rituals, self-sacrifice at the festival of Jaggannath and Sati

importation of widows on their husband's funeral pyres.

Those were the days in which Emerson read about the Indian

superstitions. He was behind the curve even for his own provincial

community. The magazine his father edited, The Monthly Anthology and

Boston Review had been the first in the United States to publish a piece of

Classic Indian Literature. He was more awakened in the late 1780s by

Victor Cousin's précis, the Oriental Renaissance of the dialogue between

Krishna and Arjuna from The Bhagvad Gita. Krishna admonishes the

warrior that his reluctance to shed the blood of friends and kin is

misguided because the material world is illusionary. 'What is today a man

was yesterday a plant and tomorrow may become a plant once more.'

Arjuna must act, as befits a Kshatriya, a member of the warrior caste. But

to act with integrity is to act as if, an acted not (Si, on, n agissait pas) that

is in a spirit of non-attachment to the fruit of one's actions. For action too

is an illusion nothing exists but the external principle of being in itself.

The scriptures of India long remained a more peripheral influence on

Emerson's religious thinking than that of Platonism, Coleridge and

Swedenborg. Eastern Philosophy especially helped him and fortified his

theory of spiritual impersonality and fathom how the material world

might be illusionary, without being non-existent. Emerson credits the

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Hindus with the liveliest feeling both of the essential identity and of that

illusion which they conceive variety to be “The notion I am and this is

mine, which influence mankind are but delusions of the mother of the

world and the beatitude of man, they hold to lie in being freed from

fascination."(Frank, A.Von, 78) This passage Emerson quotes here from the

Vishnu Purana recorded during his first intensive immersion in Scriptures

of India in the mid of 1840s and later cities in Representative Men as a

proof of the antiquity of the doctrine of the oneness of mind. Scepticism

about human kind powers of God like perception did not dampen but

rather intensified the force of appeals to his sense of moral integrity yet

Krishna does much the same in The Gita in order to get Arjuna beyond

his impulse.

Hinduism thus validated the symbolic reading of the material

world. Emerson always preferred without initially being able to justify it.

He insists that the true doctrine is not immortality but eternity which

should be universally shared. Apart from Hinduism, Emerson had a great

impact of Buddhism. Emerson might have taken his presentation copy of

Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia as conforming evidence. Emerson and

The Light of Asia were soon interlinked. A reading journal of the

Transatlantic Theosophy Movement which had strong ties to Buddhism,

found identity between Karmic law and Emersonian Over-Soul. Edwin

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Arnold was a stout defender of British imperial rule though usually not in

abuses. Arnold was also a serious student of Sanskrit who tried to learn

Marathi as well who researched his poem carefully using his best

contemporary scholarship. Mediators like Arnold and Emerson activated

western interest in the wisdom of the east and helped set seekers like the

Brahmin Bigelow and the more obscure. Emerson and Arnold were

considered to be changing identity during their time.

In 1857, Journal Sequence where Emerson first records in which he

read the short stories of Hindu Mythology which reflected one of the

great poem Brahma, written in the 1857. It is one of the most popular

poems of Emerson. It owes its inspiration to his studies in Hindu

Scriptures. According to Hindu thought, there is a supreme power that

governs and guides the whole universe. This supreme power is the origin

and the creator of all living beings and the objects perceived by them

through the senses and also the final destination of the soul. This Hindu

Vedantic concept is one of the basic themes of his poems and Brahma is

one of them:

If the red slayer think he slays, or if the slain thinks he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again (1-4)

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If the blood stained murderer thinks that he has murdered his

enemy, he is wrong and if his victim thinks he has been murdered by his

enemy, he is equally wrong. They do not know the mysterious ways of

Brahma, the God, It is he who lives, he who dies and he who is born

again. It is he who is both the creator and the destroyer. He is the real

doer of all things. The same concept we find in The Gita also in the

conversation of lord Krishna and Arjuna, wise man does not bother about

his kith and kins, we all just playing our role, who does his best become

great in this world:

Jh Hkxokuqokp] v'kksP;kusU'kkspLRo izKkoknk Hkk"klsA xrklwuukrklw=̀ ukuq'kkspfUr if.Mr%AA(The Bhagvad Gita ,Chapter

1,Isloka11)

Shri Bhagvan said, “Arjuna, you grieve over those who should not

be grieved for and speak like a learned wise man, do not sorrow over the

dead or living.” Further he said, both of them are ignorant. He who knows

the soul to be capable of killing and he who takes it as killed:

;a ,ua osfUr gUrkja ;JSu eU;rs gÙkeAmHkkS rkS u aaafotkuhrks uk;a gfUr u gU;rsAA(The Bhagvad Gita,chpter 1-Isloka 20)

According to Emerson, Brahma or soul which is divine or filled

with God is higher above everything. All countries are equally near.

Distance does not matter to him. To him shadows and sunlight are the

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same. To him the dead and vanished appear to be present. To him fame

and shame are the same:

For or forgot to me is near; shadow and sunlight are the same. The Vanquished Gods to me appear. And one to me are shame and fame(5-8)

Thus lord Kishna tells Arjuna , “If you should expose of this soul

to be the subject to constant birth and death, even then you should not

grieve like this because grieve is ignorance.” The Doctrine of Brahma

reflects The Brahma - Sutra, The Upanishads and The Gita. It has high

fluid of philosophical thought. This poem been interpreted by the

transcendentalist critic.

As Emerson understood the real aspect of life and after writing

Brahma, he wrote Maya which means the material world or full of

illusion. He realizes that this world is full of illusion. Nothing is true in it.

It is incomplete and false idea in which we move round and round and

there is no end in it.

In this poem Emerson shows us about the opposite concept of

Brahma. Maya is a small poem written by Emerson in the year 1904 .The

title of the poem is totally clear that it has been taken from the Hindu

concepts which mean illusion. Maya is just opposite and different from

Brahma in many ways. The poem is actually in a couplet form. There are

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three couplets in all. The poem being of controlled length is artistically

perfect and flawless.

According to Emerson's description illusion or Maya works

impenetrably. It cannot be understood. It weaves its constant and number

less thread. Its showy pictures sure to strike us. It goes on multiplying on

itself cover after cover. It is a magician who is sure to betray the faith a

man who believes in it. Maya, no doubt, is deceptive and untruthful. This

is the true concept of Hindu mythology that this world is full of illusions.

Nothing is true in it. It attracts temporarily and takes to the big darkness:

Illusion works impenetrable, weaving webs innumerable, Her gay picture never fail crowds each on other, Veil on Veil, Charmer who will be believed By man who thirsts to be deceived . (2-5)

Emerson was a man who was impressed with ideas and concepts of

Hindu theory. His soul is quenched with their theories. In this regard

Arthur Christy, The Orient in American transcendentalist views, "Maya

assumes a various forms, Brahma is beyond all. Maya is manifold,

Brahma is one and eternal. Maya is spread everywhere enveloping the

Brahma the sage alone can pierce through the mist. "(148)

In Terminus (1880), Emerson describes the theory of over-soul.

Terminus is a Latin word that literally means boundary stone. It may also

be used to describe the end of the road. In Roman religion Terminus was

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the God who protected boundary markers. His name belonged to the

Latin word. For such a mark, sacrifices were performed to sanctify each

boundary stone and land owners celebrated a festival called the

Terminalia.

Terminus was written at that time when Emerson was suffering

from the disease of tuberculosis at the age of sixty. Terminus is

considered to be the Roman God of boundaries and limits, who can curb

the limits even of sea and the earth. It was his mature age. This simplifies

here that when a person has come closer to his last phase of life, he

automatically realizes that his soul will meet with the Over-Soul. It was

his mature age when the Roman God come to his unusual round and said

to him no more ambitions now, this is the time to stop all this. The

imagination which is high and wide like a key should be confined to the

small area of tent or grave:

It is time to be old, To take in sail:- The god of bounds, who sets to seas of a shore came to me in his fatal rounds And said: No more! (1-4)

Roman God further says that, it is the time for one to choose one

thing either death or life. As one cannot live longer, so make full use of

time as much as one can. One should be grateful to God. The giver of life

at the same time. Be wise and in time accept the terms and conditions

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prescribed by the Over-Soul in a spirit of gratefulness. One should be

wise to accept the facts of death. Mental preparation is necessary for one

and easy for one to enter one’s gravely environment, only a little time is

now left and so live cheerfully and smile. Emerson was satisfied with his

disease of tuberculosis because he was weak and sick and this was his

ancestral problem:

There's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the giver. leave the many and hold the few. (12-16)

The poet listened to the advice of the God Terminus and acted

accordingly just as the bird makes itself fit and ready to face the strong

gale of a wind, so he prepared himself to hold the rudder and control the

sail of the ship of life. He decided to banish all fears from his heart and

go forward in the sea of eternity. The part (The abode of God) is well

worth seeking and soon it seemed to the poet that he was very close to it.

All the wave of the sea of eternity seems to be charmed with the divine

grandeur:

As the bird trims her to the gale. I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail. Obey the voice at ewe obeyed at prime.(34-36)

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The poem is touched with an autobiographical note and written at

the close years of his life, when he understands the meaning of death. He

describes man is not immortal and his life is limited, is sure to be

terminated one day by death. He can understand the meaning of life and

death easily. The language of the poem is simple and mythological.

Different writer gives different views about Emerson's poem 'Terminus'.

Richardson’s writes, “Whether scholars and anthologists have assigned a

precise date of composition to Terminus or not the general impression has

been that Emerson wrote the poem upon approaching old age.” (204 ) Dr.

Edward Waldo implied that it was written in the Sixties in another

passage, Dr. Emerson confirmed his own implication. God or over soul

has placed everything in its proper place and background, nothing should

be separated from its background other wise its natural beauty or charm is

lost. This is proved by the poem Fable written in the year 1890.

"If I cannot carry forests at my back/ neither can you crack a nut (18-19)

The same concept, Emerson tries to clarify in the poem Each and

All written in 1839. Each is necessary for all (Over-Soul) and all (Over-

Soul) for each over soul and soul for each. The Over soul unites all of

them in single whole. Emerson signifies beautifully that every creature

whether it is small or big has some existence. Without them, no body is

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having any importance.

Emerson has given many examples about this poem. The

relationship of Bride and Bridegroom is one of them. During the time of

wedding, the bridegroom watched his beautiful bride who looked at her

as an enchantress or a fairy. Her bride maids were also wearing a

beautiful dress and going to the procession of the church. The bridegroom

does not know this fact that the beauty of a bride is enhanced by the snow

white dress of bride maids who were going to the procession. As soon as

the bride came to the house, she was separated from her beautiful

environment and lost her fairy charm. The bride may be gentle wife but

she was no longer a fairy. So beauty looks beautiful at its perfect place.

“A gay enchantment was undone/A gentle wife but fairy none.” (35-36)

In another poem Give all to Love written in 1847, God is love and

love is God. This poem is full of emotions. Without the feeling of love

man cannot understand the true love. In every relationship like friend,

relatives all will maintain the theory of love in which the Over-Soul lies.

The excitement of love we can see in the affair of Ellen. Their love is so

much high that it becomes pious. Emerson once wrote to his brother

Charles, “We botanize and criticize and poetize and memorize and prize

and grow wise we hope.”(Rusk, 326) He forgot his self conscious dignity and

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giggled and sings with Ellen. They were like the couple of children

suddenly released from school. After that they would never get a chance

to live happily that is why its title is similar to their love Give all to love.

It envelopes the entire reality of an individual who experiences his own

relationship with friends and relatives.

Here Emerson says that in front of love these materialistic things

do not exist. Love is higher from all the worldly things which we hoard.

If love is there all relationship exists. Emerson further says that in front of

love, all things look fade and cheap. Even divinely powers are also

entrapped in the theory of love. These powers look faded in front of love

because this is that universal truth which binds the blessings of all human

in one rope. In another paragraph Emerson describes that love is stronger

than the powerful things. The power of love is higher from our

expectations. Hopeful person is always confident and tries to generate his

own path in the field of love and tenderness. Love is that powerful feeling

which always allows one to be a self-confident and self-bearing person

and a person become self bearing only when he has love for himself:

“Hope beyond Hope High and more high/ It dives into noon

with wing unspent untold intent.” (10-13)

In the last line of the poem, Emerson describes the importance of

loss of love. The love is so powerful and effective that no pleasure, no

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pain nothing left. The thing which left is sorrow and grief. This poem also

suggests that at last when we love someone who is very close to us is

really painful to let him or her go in front of our eyes:

Stealing Grace from all alive Heartily know when half Gods go The Gods arrive.(46-49)

On the poetic aspect we can say that Emerson emphasises on

Hindu myths and their God in general. Emerson's appreciation for India

depends, when he explored rich ideas of Indian culture. In the Asian

Miscellany by Sir William Jones, read by Emerson made a life long

impression on him. He included it in Parnassus (The Collection of his

poems), in 1875. Completion of his favourite poems and poets it would

prove important to his early, philosophical development, providing the

seed idea for his first book Nature also in Sapling 1819. Emerson read

Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh, A Colourful Romans that presented

Ancient India’s life in beguiling fashion. While it contain no genes of

philosophical wisdom. Lalla Rookh, enforced Emerson's images of

India's early History as rich and idyllic and is the probable inspiration for

a journal reverie in which Emerson imagines himself:

“The pampered child of the east born where the soft western gale breathed upon me.”(Baba Meher, 90)

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During his later years, Emerson read Douglas Stewarts, Elements

of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. In this work, Stewart discusses the

similarities and contrast between the philosophies of George Berkeley, a

well-known English Idealist and the Idealism of the Hindus. Stewart

included in this analysis a trenchant summary of the tents of the Vedanti

School sent him by a friend posted to India. Swami Chidananda has

rightly viewed about the concept of Over-Soul:

“Truth alone can liberate us, Falsehood cannot liberate us.

Deluded thinking is a trap. Mind is the seat of delusion.

Mind is the seat of thinking, we do not realize it but is so.

Mind is therefore the main barrier between you and he, who

is nearer to you than your nearest, the indwelling reality

God. Therefore with humility and simplicity, we must

approach God in turtle sense and faith in absolute trust,

seating aside contrary notion that are created by the mind

which is Maya.” (98)

As an essayist, Emerson was a master of style, 'Emerson is God'

declared the literary theorists. Many of his phrases have long since passed

into common English pattern. “A minority of one, The devils attorney, A

foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” (119) His essays have

speech like characteristics and prophetic tone, a sermon like quality, often

linked to his practice as a Unitarian Minister. Emerson’s aim was not

merely to charm his readers but encourage them to cultivate self-trust, to

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become what they ought to be and to be opened to the intuitive world of

experience. Emerson developed metaphysics of process, an epistemology

of moods of self-improvement. He influenced generations of Americans

from his friend Henry David Thoreau of John Dewey and in Europe,

Nietzsche Nickche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power of

fate, used of poetry and history and critique of Christianity. In 1845,

Emerson's journals show that he was reading the Bhagwad Gita and

Henry Thomas, Cole-Bookies, Essay or the Vedas. Emerson was strongly

influenced by the Vedas and much of his writing has strong shades of

non-dualism. Emerson was much inspired by the theory of Hindu concept

and its eastern sources comes from the cross-cultural percolation. Pratap

Chander Majumdar was the one with whom Emerson was influenced.

Even according to Majumdar, Emerson was the most satisfied among

Americans. The impact of Gandhi, Nehru, Sen, and Majumbdar were the

most influential characters in the eyes of Emerson. Ram Mohan Roy who

was known as the early 19th century Bengali impressed by the Unitarians,

including the young Emerson. Brahamo Samaj was the most westernised

and the most intellectualised of several 19th century Indian movements

that sought to reform Hinduism and strengthen Indian cultural and self-

determination by selective importation of western elements. Majumdar's

mentor, Keshub Chandra Sen had also been a student of

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transcendentalism. Emerson and especially Theodore Parker also

understood the concept of religion at their own time. Emersonian

religious radicalism and Brahmo Samaj sought to develop cosmopolitan

vision of the religion in order to Combat tribalism but whereas Emerson

desires to identify a universal spirituality whose cultural work will

enlighten people one by one. The Indian reformers were bent on renewing

thought to the end of cultural self-determination on the one hand, while

on the other Emerson does not altogether fit the stereotype of the

Orientals for he wished to be influenced by Asian thought and supports

his theory of a universal religion. He viewed on the facts of spiritual

privatisation of whatever sort was not his sole legacy as a religious

thinker. His writings were also important in prodding Anglo-American

Protestantism to re-imagine religion on a global scale to think, world

religion. By the end of his life, Emerson had helped to create at least for

once a more hospitable climate among the U.S. Protestant and Post-

Protestant Elite. Overwhelming towards faith traditions that the majority

of early 19th century Americans including Emerson himself had once

written off as rank superstition. Transcendentalism was in fact the first

significant intellectual movement in the United States actively to promote

interest in eastern religion there. In retrospect, one is tempted to look

back on the intellectual receptivity to Hinduism. Buddhism,

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Confucianism and Islam that Emerson stimulated among younger

transcendentalist as an Augury to the late twentieth-century burgeoning

of non-western religious in the United State with the rise immigration

from East and South Asia. Whitman views about his concept of Over-

Soul:

He shows us all the powers of heaven and earth based in

supporting the threshold where two neighbours speak of the

failing rain or the arising wood and above these two way

farers accosting each other he makes as see the face of one

God smiling upon another. He is nearer to us than anyone in

our every day life the most watchful and persistent of

monitor.(139)

The concept of Over-Soul by Emerson, has recently be used by

eastern philosophy such as Meher Baba and other as the closest English

language equivalents of Vedic concept of Param Atman. In Sanskrit the

word the Param means supreme and Atama means Soul which literally

means supreme soul. The term is frequently in discussion of eastern

metaphysical and has also entered western vernacular. In this context the

term Over-Soul is understood as collective indivisible soul of which all

individual souls or identities are included. Meher Baba’s most significant

book God Speaks written in 1955, which Emerson read deeply influenced

him. Kenneth Lux writes after reading Meher Baba’s book “God speaks

in Meher Baba major book and it is famously difficult.” (257)

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The essay The Over-Soul was Emerson’s first essay. This essay

belongs to the first series in 1841. It has a touch of transcendentalism. It

reflects the influence of Indian philosophy and mysticism. This includes

the highest expression in the religious writings of the east and chiefly in

the Indian scripture. He believes that soul is like a steam whose source is

hidden and unknown. Emerson suggests in this essay that the Over-Soul

is high and above from everything. Through these ideas Emerson

elaborates his doctrine of Over-Soul. Emerson appears to have arrived at

an awareness of this through his own experience of spiritual illumination.

The Over–Soul is beauty, love, wisdom, and power. It is immense

throughout nature. Emerson believes that man can achieve this immense

intelligence, with his own particular tricks and talents. This intelligence

Emerson identify with the metaphysical ‘Divine Light’. It is vast spiritual

existence. It is omnipresent , immanent and benevolent. The mind has an

intuitive apprehension of this Over-Soul. The foremost important quality

Emerson distinguishes between the sacred teachers and literary teachers

between poets like George Herbert and poets like Pope, between

philosophers like Kant and Coleridge. The distinction arises from the fact

one class of teachers, poets and philosophers speak. While other class of

poets, speak from without like a mere spectator. To speak to the people or

try to teach them from the rational plain is of no use. According to

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Emerson, the person who speaks without is just only an accomplished

orator but he who speaks from within is a fervent mystic. He always

speaks with the fury of divine inspiration. His words have power to move,

for they come out of his soul. “That one class speak from within, or from

experience as parties and possessors of the fact; and the other class from

without as spectators merely.” (Norsberg Peter, 259) The influence of the Over-

Soul flows into intellect and makes man genius. True genius is religious.

According to Emerson humanity shines in such poets as Homer, Chaucer,

Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. They are great for what they inspire.

Truths come from out of their pen. There is oneness of all means there is

a close relationship between God, man and nature. These things are

possible only a man when know his worth and realize the divine impulse

of God. According to Emerson soul is like a stream whose source is

hidden and unknown. If in case, a man cannot visualize God, then in

order to know God or to established contact with God, a man must rely

upon himself alone and not on others views or thoughts. It is only through

his own meditation, his own contemplation and his own concentration

that a man can come into the union with God and this union is the highest

bliss. Every man should be the law to himself in all spiritual matters and

rely fully on his own intuitions. He must seek God by all himself. In the

essay Over-Soul he writes, “He will calmly front the morrow in the

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negligence of that trust which carries god with it and so hath already the

whole future in the bottom of the heart.” (104)

Emerson signifies the value and the importance of the Poet. He writes in

The Poet (1841), “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion.

It is easy in the solitude to live after our own but the Great man is he who

in the midst of the crows keeps with perfect sweetness the independence

of solitude.” (213)

Here he says that the poet sees the truth and communicates it

through his poetry because Poets are the liberating Gods. This is that kind

of frenzy which does not come by study but by the intellect being where

and what it sees. The poet sees the truth and communicates it through his

poetry. The condition of true naming on the poet's part is his resigning

himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms. That's why the

poet has new thoughts, he has a whole new experience to reveal. Emerson

suggests further that good poet can have that divine frenzy to revel and he

can write his experience through words but he can be more reflective in

his ideas when he attaches himself with nature.

Emerson begins the essay Nature, which he published in 1836 with

lowing lyrical account of the beauties of nature which at every step

reminds us of Wordsworth. In the spring days which are nature’s greatest

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glory, all nature is decked out in her very best and there is joy and delight

in widest commonality for the free enjoyment of all who care to leave

their cities and go out into woods and dales which Emerson calls the

cities of nature. Man is thus free to enjoy nature in their grandeur and

glory. Emerson further satisfies himself with view point of words that

there is a close relationship between man, God and nature. “Nature is

loved by what is best in us. “It is loved as the city of God, although or

rather because there is no citizen.” (7) In this regard Woolsey Theodore

Dwight writes:

The noblest writing in (Emerson’s) writings are those in which he celebrates this august and gracious communication of the spirit of God with the soul of man; and they are the most serious, solemn, and uplifting passages which can perhaps be found in our literature. Here was a man who had earned the right to utter these nobles truths by patient meditation and clear insight. (309)

Self-Reliance is one of the most revolutionary as well as one of the

most controversial essays of Emerson. Every man for himself but here

Emerson was truly towards himself. He simply identifies his theory of

self with the theory of Over-Soul which normal intellectual cannot define.

Emerson further believes that in order to know God or to establish contact

with God, a man must rely on himself alone not what others have said or

done. It is through his own meditation and own contemplation a man can

come in the union with God. There should be no relying on the authority

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of others. The highest thought with every man is that man should have

faith in his own mind. Only exceptional individuals have spiritual insight

as to be able to identify God within. “Let man know his worth and keep

things under his feet.” (122) Experience belongs to the personal pains and

sufferings of the essayist. Emerson has expressed the feelings of complete

sorrows at the time when he lost his son, Waldo with the scarlet fever. He

expressed the activities and the actions of his child in this essay. His

child’s activities memorize him and it was not easy for him to forget all.

He speaks against the effort to over intellectualised life and particularly

against experiments also. He believes that a wise and happy life requires

a positive attitude. Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise,

Reality, Subjectivity are the seven parts which are needed for the

existence of all human beings to survive. He viewed, “Life wears to me

visionary face hardest, roughest action is visionary also.” (253) Everyone is

too focused on the opinions and actions of others and take personal stance

for only once. He further says that people are multiform and hesitate

forming the society as one whole. This is one reason why people imitate

others. If a man feels that he is one with society, he won’t feel any

sadness and loneliness inside him. Instead of hiding himself from horrible

experience one should try to learn from them and cooperate the morals

from daily life.

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Emerson defines The Over- Soul in three principles. The principle

of life, matter and intelligence. This matter exists in three forms; solid,

liquid and gas. Matter is the external aspect of the over-soul. The universe

springs from and goes back into. It circumscribes all material things that

the first element of over-soul is principle of matter. “We see the world

piece by piece as the sun, the moon, the animal the trees but he whole of

which these are the shining parts is the soul.” (187)

In the first principle of life, Emerson describes the importance of

life in human beings. A living being is animate and alive only. When the

spark of life-principle is present in body, It reflects as the appearance,

seen or brightness without life man cannot exists, so the reflection of

over- soul is shown in every being through life. “It is if no use to preach

to me from without I can do that too easily myself Jesus speaks always

from within.” (196)

The third element and essential of the over-soul is the principle of

intelligence in man. In lower living creatures it reflects itself as the

Impulses Intelligence is the prerogative of man only. “The same

omniscience flows into the intellect and makes what we call genius much

of the wisdom of the world it hot wisdom.” (196)

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After disabling three principles Emerson describes the whole

essence of his doctrine so he believes with strong faith that soul is

immeasurable and indefinable means there is no language of a soul. The

theory of Over-Soul is not based on any religious books, rather it is based

on complete illumination. It can not be measure. It has no certain limits.

The over soul is above time and space. The supremacy of the soul is

known to us by its independence of those limitations which restrain and

confine man from every side. The soul transcends all such limitations. All

things are circumscribed by the over-soul. The soul goes beyond all

expectations. Time and space are considered to be solid but nothing to

this over-soul. The over-soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. This

truth is not outer part which one sees, it is a feeling that one feels.

Herambachandra Maitra in Harvard Theological review (1911) writes,

“The Over-Soul is really the Translation of a Sanskrit word and

commended certain western writers especially Emerson and Wordsworth

translating into the language of modern culture what was uttered by the

sages of ancient India. In the loftiest strains breathing new life into our

old faith.” (403)

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