Appendix 1 - Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Poem, ‘Brahm’

(Delivered, in New York in April 4, 1921)

Ladies and Gentlemen, many of you are familiar with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem on “Brahm” (Brahman). Ralph Waldo Emerson is called the Concord Sage. He was a poet and the greatest philosopher America has produced. He lived in Concord, Massachusetts. He was a voracious reader. He studied all philosophies, ancient and modern. He. studied all the scriptures as far as he could reach, and he tried to observe all the truths that he could gather from various sources. A great many things that you find in his essays and in his poems are the products of his vast knowledge and also the result of what he experienced and realized in his own soul. He was born in 1803, and passed away in 1882.

He wrote this poem, “Brahm”, after an incident which, perhaps, may be interesting to you to know. Ralph Waldo Emerson went to visit Carlyle in England, and Carlyle, in his course of conversation, showed him a book entitled The Bhagavad Gita, and English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which he had with him. It was a translation that was made by Charles Wilkins, published in London in 1785. This was the first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita. It was translated afterwards in all the other languages of the civilized world, and it was published in New York in 1867. Carlyle said to Emerson: “This is a most inspiring book; it has brought comfort and consolation in my life—I hope it will do the same to you. Read it”. Emerson read it, and he incorporated the ideas that he gathered from this wonderful book, the Bhagavad Gita, into this poem, which is called “Brahm”.

It is a short poem of four verses. The first verse begins thus:

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

The second verse reads:

Far or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same.
The vanished gods to be appear
And one to me are shame and fame.

The third verse:

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings:
I am the doubter and the doubt
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

And fourth:

The strong Gods pine for my abode
And pine in vain the sacred Seven:
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

These four verses make this poem complete. When I was lecturing, a few years ago, in the New England states, in course of one of my lectures I explained the meaning of this first verse. One of the direct followers and personal friends of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was afterwards made the president of the Emerson Club in Boston, happened to be at that meeting when I lectured at Greenacre in Maine. After the lecture was over, I met Mr. Malloy—that was his name—and he said: “How do you explain that passage, that verse, ‘If the red slayer think he slays, or that slain think he is Slain, they know not well the subtle ways, I keep, and pass, and turn again’. I do not understand this. What does it mean?” I said, it is a free translation of a Sanskrit passage which we have in the Vedas and also in the Bhagavad Gita. He was quite interested. That is the same idea, only it is a free rendering of two or three verses which we read in the Bhagavad Gila.

The first verse refers to a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 2, verse 19: ‘Ya enam vetti hantaram”, etc. If the slayer think he slays, or if the slain think he is slain, both of them do not know that the soul of man can neither slay nor be slain. That is the literal meaning of that verse.

Then the other part, the last two lines of the first verse:

They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

This refers to the idea of the immortality of the soul and its rebirth. The subtle ways are unknown to ordinary mortals. The soul comes into existence on this plane, keeps, passes out, and comes back again. This is the idea taught in the Bhagavad Gita as the idea of reincarnation. Emerson believed in reincarnation.

If we read his essays, in his essay on Experience, he mentions that in a very clear way:

“We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight”.

That stairs refers to the stairs in the process of evolution. We have already passed many of the stairs which we have ascended. Now we are on a certain rung of the leader of evolution and we are going onward. So, he did not believe in the idea of one birth, that is, this is the first and the last birth that we have, but, on the contrary, he believed in the preexistence of the soul and its return after the death of the body.

In the Bhagavad Gita, we read, in the second chapter, in the sloka 22:

“As we throw away our old worn-out garments and put on new ones, so the individual souls, after throwing out the garment of the gross physical body, puts on another to satisfy its desires, to gain further experiences.”

The very title of this poem is rather mysterious. Few people know that it means “Brahm”. In,his essay on Immortality, Emerson quotes from one of these Upanishads, a portion of the Vedas, that is the earliest treatise on the Vedanta philosophy. He takes the translation of the Katha Upanishad into his essay and incorporates it. It is entitled, The Secret of Death. It was afterwards translated by Sir Edwin Arnold under that title, The Secret of Death. It begins with the story that a young man who was a seeker after truth was sent to the abode of death, and he asked questions about what happens after death. “Oh Lord”, he says, “when a man dies, some people think that he is gone forever, he is destroyed, annihilated; others say that he lives and continues to exist. Which of these is true? Please remove my doubt”. The ruler of death, whose name is Yama (just like Pluto in Greek) explains what happens to the person who dies, how he passes through different stages. It is a most interesting story, full of inspiration and highest truth that was revealed through the ancient seer through this conversation. In his essay on Immortality, Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes this whole story, giving an abstract, and he says (this is the direct quotation from his essay on Immortality) “Brahm, the Supreme,—whoever knows him obtains whatever he wishes”. That is a translation from this same Upanishad of the original text. Then he continues:

“The soul is not born; it does not die. It was not produced from anyone, nor was any produced from it. Unborn, eternal, it is not slain though the body is slain. Subtler than what is subtle, greater than what is great; sitting, it goes afar; sleeping, it goes everywhere. Thinking the soul as unbodily among bodies, firm among fleeting things, the wise man casts off all grief. The soul cannot be obtained by knowledge, nor by understanding, nor by manifold sciences. It can be obtained by the soul by which it is desired. It reveals its own truths”.

So, now you get the idea of what the Brahman is. The Brahman is the Absolute, the eternal reality, unchangeable, infinite Spirit, immovable. It is the source of all. In the Bhagavad Gita, we find that description in the 13th chapter, about the Brahman, verses from 12 to 15.

I will read to you so that you will understand what it means:

“I shall describe that which has to be known; knowing which one attains to immortality, the beginningless supreme Brahm. It is called neither being nor non-being. With hands and feet everywhere, with eyes and heads and mouths everywhere, with ears everywhere in the universe,—That exists pervading all.

Shining by the functions of all the senses, yet without the senses; Absolute, yet sustaining all; devoid of Gunas, yet their experiencer.

Without and within all beings; the unmoving and also the moving; because subtle, it is incomprehensible; and it is far and near."

That “far and near” he gives here in this second verse:

Far or forgot to be is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same.

Here you find another idea. “Shadow and sunlight are the same/’ he gets from the Katha Upanishad, or the Secret of Death:

“In the cave of the hearts of men there are two dwellings in the ether or space of the heart. The one is the self-effulgent sun; the other is its reflection, its shadow, its imagine; but they are both one and the same”.

Again, in chapter 7 of the Bhagavad Gita, verse 8, we find that the Infinite Brahman is in the moon and in the sun.

It is also in the shadow of all living things.

The vanished gods to me appear
And one to me are shame and fame.

Here we find the idea of oneness, equality among all beings. All the opposites of nature are pervaded by the absolute Spirit or the Brahman. There is neither shame nor fame in the spirit, but it is a kind of delusion.

In chapter 12, verse 19, of the Bhagavad Gita, we read:

“He who is the same in censure or in praise, and he who is satisfied under all conditions, is the beloved of the Father”.

So shame and fame, we must not consider as affecting our spiritual nature. The Spirit is beyond and above all the conditions of the mind and body.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings.

If anyone tries to do any work without giving credit to the real doer, but tries to get the credit for himself or for herself, is living the Brahman out, he or she is running away from the Brahman; but in the act of running away from the Brahman, the wings are the Brahman. That is, the motion itself is the Brahman. You cannot get away from it. The moment you try to get away from the Truth, you are using the power of the Brahman. It is not your power. When you do a thing, think that you are the doer and think you ought to receive the benefit of it, you are self-deluded. You have not done anything. But who are you? You are part of the Brahman, clothed with the subtle instrument of mind and intellect and with the gross instrument of the physical body. The very power that moves your body is not yours. It is the power of the Brahman. The very power that makes you think is not yours. Therefore it is said in the Bhagavad Gita that it is only those who are selfdeluded and ignorant who consider themselves as doers, but it is the power of Brahman that is moving the universe. Those who do not see that power, those who do not understand the source, become egotistic and consider themselves as great and wonderful. But those who understand the truth regard that they are like instruments through which the divine Will is flowing and manifesting its work.

This idea you will find very beautifully described in the 18th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

“The infinite Brahman dwells in all hearts, and human beings are moving about like a potter’s wheel propelled from within by the power of Brahman”.

There we get a beautiful idea that we are absolutely an instrument. We have no will of our own as separated from the will of the infinite Brahman or the universal Will.

Then he says: “I am the doubter and the doubt.”

Here you will notice that the subject and the object and their relation are one and the same; that is, the same Brahman appears as the subject and appears as the object and appears as the relation. The knower, the thing or object known, and knowledge are one in the Absolute. In the Absolute, what you are experiencing now, does not exist in that way, but they all become one. The lover, the beloved and love itself all merge into oneness. You cannot grasp that idea now, but you realize that there is only one Being which appears as subject and object. The Brahman is like the universal Being, and that Being may be regarded as the magnet. The whole universe may be regarded as a magnet. Its one end is positive, or the mind, or the subject; the other end is the negative, the object, or matter. But the central point, where this positive and negative meet, is neither positive nor negative, but neutral. That is the Absolute. When the Absolute manifests itself through the relations, or relativity of time and space, it appears as subject, as mind and matter, as lover and the beloved. But in reality they are all one. This idea Emerson grasped very clearly, because he expressed that beautifully in his essay on The Over-Soul.

By the way, I shall explain the meaning of the word, “Over-soul”. The ‘Over-soul’ is the translation of the Sanskrit word Paramatman. Para means ‘over’, and Atman, ‘soul’.

In that essay he says:

“The act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object are one.”

That idea he gets from the study of the Bhagavad Gita and from the Upanishads.

In the fourth chapter, we read, describing the sacrifice:

“The fire is Brahman, the act of pouring the oblation is Brahman, the oblation itself is Brahman, the sacrifice is Brahman, the very thought that rests in the mind of the sacrificer is Brahman. He who realizes this goes to Brahman”.

That is a beautiful idea that the action performed by the actor and the result are one and the same, only different in manifestation. If we try to understand that very clearly, we will have to consider that thought is the beginning of any action of the physical body; that is, thought manifests itself in the form of physical action. What is thought? It is nothing but the product of thinking, and thinking power is the self-conscious activity of the Spirit. So, you see, the self-conscious activity of the Spirit appears as thought and appears as external froms, and then we give names to all the objects of the world. You have an idea, by reading Genesis, that they were created by God who created everything out of nothing. But He did not create everything out of nothing, but from his own mind. If you try to understand the mythical story given in Genesis, you ought to study the Vedanta philosophy, and you will learn something. The very thought of light that appeared in the cosmic mind, produced light. Now, the form of this table is the projection of the thought form which arose in the carpenter’s mind. The carpenter created this form or protected this form out of it, and by manipulating the material wood, he got that form, just as an artist paints on a piece of canvas and creates the form or projects his thoughts upon the canvas. In the same way, the creator, or the First-Born Lord, who is the first manifestation of the Brahman, projects out of his cosmic mind all the sun, moon and stats, all the planets, and the planetary system. So we are nothing but the results of thought forms that arise in the cosmic mind. There is the pattern, the pattern of a horse, the pattern of a cow, of a camel, of a tree, and the pattern of a perfect man in the cosmic mind in the form of ideas. There comes the Platonic idea, the eternal idea. There comes also the Logos here. The fourth Gospel begins with that Logos, that “in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God”. That word was the outward expression of thought. Thought manifested in word. Before the manifested word came into existence there was the unmanifested word or the thought, and that thought was determined in the cosmic mind. Therefore when we study this Emerson’s poem, if we do not study carefully we would not be able to understand what he meant by it. It is the deepest philosophy, the highest truth, that any human being can think of, can conceive of:

“I am the doubter and the doubt.”

There is a saying in the Gita, which we learn in our childhood:

“I am the serpent that bites and I am the poison, and I am again the healer that cures the effect of the poison.”

It is very difficult to understand how it is possible, because the dualistic minds of Christendom are trained in a different way. They think that these are the creatures, and God is away from us, away from the world. But God is right here, in and through us, working through us. He is not far away. He is not sitting above the clouds, commanding from there. That is an old mythical idea. It is a mythology. Emerson did not believe that.

Emerson believed that God is dwelling in every individual; in fact, every soul is the tabernacle, the temple of Brahman, or the infinite absolute Spirit:

“And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.”

This we get from the 10th chapter, verse 22, “I am the hymn of Sama Veda”. Here I will explain to you what Sama Veda is. There are four Vedas of the ancient Hindus. In fact, the one Veda is divided into four parts, which they name by different names. There are hymns. The most ancient of these hymns are recorded in the Veda called Rig Veda. ‘Rig’ means hymn, and ‘Veda’ means knowledge. Knowledge that came to them through revelation in the forms of these hymns. And when these hymns were put into music they used to chant and sing them at the time of their ritual and ceremonial services and in sacrifice, and so forth. And that particular hymn, when put into music, is called Sama Veda. And all these hymns are set into music, from which the post-vedic classical music evolved. You must remember that the seven notes of the octave also originated in India, and afterwards the Greeks got it. You give credit to the Greeks, but they do not deserve it. They got it from India. The Chinese had only five notes. The highest form of music which is in perfect harmony with nature or human thought and the expression of the soul, was realized in India long before it was known in any other country. You are familiar with Wagnerian music. Wagner studied the Sanskrit science of music which was translated into Latin, and there he got the idea of ‘motives’, and he put those motives in his music, and that is why it is so difficult for untrained minds and untrained ears to grasp the truth of Wagnerian music. At first, when Wagner brought out this music, nobody cared for it. He went to Schopenhauer with the greatest disappointment, but Schopenhauer urged him to continue, that it was the highest music. He was also another student of the Vedas. He was the pioneer in Germany, as Ralph Waldo Emerson was the pioneer of the Vedanta teaching in America. Sama Veda is still sung and chanted in India by the priests and the scholars. They are more like Gregorian chant.

So he refers to that: “I am the hymn that the Brahmin sings”, which has been described in the Sama Veda:

The strong gods pine for my abode
And pine in vain the sacred Seven.

This idea we find in the 10th chapter, verse 2:

“The devas, the bright gods do not know this Absolute.” And also in the 11th chapter, verse 52, we read:

“Even the devas (bright spirits) are panting to see this divine manifestation.”

Arjuna prays to the Lord to show him that form which mortal eyes could stand, and then he comes down again to this plane of sense consciousness. And then he says that even the devas, bright gods, are panting to see, struggling to see that manifestation which he saw at that moment. Here the verse is very beautiful. You might like me to read the verse.

Chapter 11, verse 52 reads.

“The Blessed Lord said: Very hard indeed it is to see this form of mine which thou hast seen. Even the devas, the bright gods, ever long to be hold this form. Neither by the Vedas, nor by austerity, nor by gifts, nor by sacrifice can I be seen as thou has seen Me”.

It cannot be seen by practising austerity or by reading the scriptures. How then can it be seen? He says:

“But by single devotion I may in this Form be known, O Arjuna, and seen in reality, and also entered into.”

Therefore love and devotion are the easiest ways, by which one attain to God-realization. Just as Emerson said in his essay on Immortality:

“The soul- cannot be gained by knowledge, not by manifold sciences. It can be obtained by the soul, by which it is desired. It reveals its own truth.”

Emerson translated it by putting this word ‘desire’, but we should say, ‘by one who loves it’, and that is the real meaning. One may desire, but may not have a longing strong enough to get. This truth or eternal Spirit cannot be obtained by understanding, neither by reading the scriptures, nor by reading the commentaries, nor by intellectual effort, and nor by manifold. science, but he who longs for it and loves it, attains to it, and to him the Spirit reveals its own nature, to none else, to none else. That is a beautiful idea.

So, “The strong gods pant for my abode.”

The abode of the Infinite is the Brahman. The sacred Seven are the seven Rishis who are described in the 10th chapter. These seven Rishis were the first teachers of mankind, and they emanted [emanated?] from the mind of the Creator. They are described in all the scriptures as seven. In the Zend Avesta, the Zoroastrian scripture, seven are described as the seven archangles. They are the seven Rishis described in the Bhagavad Gita. It is the spiritual hierarchy. All spiritual knowledge came from the Supreme. Vedas also came from the Supreme. Just as we breathe out the air from our lungs freely, without any effort, so all the knowledge about the supreme Spirit that human minds have received, came out from the infinite Brahman like his own breath, without any effort. And that is the revelation. It can come at any time within our souls. In fact, that wind of revelation is constantly blowing around us, but we do not catch it. Our minds are too pre-occupied with the things of this material world. Therefore, we cannot get any revelation or Divine flash, but when we shut away all this distraction and go into the innermost self, close the door of the senses and enter into the innermost Being through prayerful attitude and perfect devotion and love, we get a glimpse of that inspiration.

There we also hear the voice of the Lord which speaks in the divine silence.

“But thou, meek lover of the good, Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.”

Here we get another idea which is very beautiful. You know, heaven is not the highest. That idea you find in the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita. Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that people go to heaven to enjoy only the celestial pleasure, and there they remain for a long period, but at the expiration of that period they come down to the plane of mortals, and enjoy joy and sorrow of the phenomenal world.

“All the heavens from the highest heaven of the Creator down to the lower realms..... are subject to rebirth and change, but the abode of the Absolute is beyond heaven.”

So if you aspire for that heaven, you will not be happy. Only those who understand the transitoriness of the phenomenal nature of all heaven, can aspire for the unchangeable eternal truth which is beyond all heaven. And he places Arjuna as one of those, and, therefore, he says:

But thou, meek lover of the good,
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

Do not care for it any more. There are many heavens, according to the Bhagavad Gita. And why should there not be many heavens? Do you think that the Christian heaven includes all ideas of human mind? No, it is only playing on the harp. That is one thing and people may not like to do it. Some may rather get tired of it. Some hope for the Mohammedan heaven, where there are houris and wine. I think that in the land of, prohibition it would be very desirable to go to Mohammedan heaven, where houris are pouring wine into the cups of the pious souls who are sitting under shade of the trees, where rivers of milk and money are flowing at their feet. That is more attractive. Then there are other heavens. Think of musicians. They would not care to go to listen to playing on the harp, especially modern musicians. They would rather like jaz music, and that would be their ideal. Then there are the painters’ heaven, the heaven of the artists, the heaven of the poets, and the heaven of the dancers. But I do not know if the modern dancers should be allowed there. They have very little clothes, you know. So, there may be many heavens. In fact, all the heavens are creations of the human mind. All that we hold dear to our hearts and wish to enjoy for a long period without any cessation or break, we regard that as heaven, and with that idea we pass out of the body, and, naturally, we are drawn to it. Because thoughts are realities or things. For instance, when you pass out of the body, if you have a desire to drink a cup of coffee, the very thought of a cup of coffee will bring unto you the cup of coffee, and the very thought of drinking will produce that delicious taste and enjoyment. There you do not have to light the gas stove and brew the coffee and then wash the pot. All this trouble you do not have in heaven. The very thought of a cup of coffee will bring the coffee and you will enjoy it. So thoughts are things and realities as I have said before. Now can you imagine the state? Yes, you ought to imagine, because in a dream you may have all the pleasures. When you do not have physical body, you do not have to go through all this drudgery and trouble and physical action. But you must remember that you are the creator, and you can create everything by your imagination. And, so you must not think yourself as a slave to the Creator and also to creation, but you are part of the Creator. And that is one of the grand ideas we learn from the scriptures that we never be despondent, never feel discouraged, and never feel that we are going to eternal damnation after death. There are some people who have become so degenerate in their thoughts that they are born in sin and iniquity, and they cannot think that they are divine. They are rather frightened to think it. They say: “How dare you say such a thing?” We are gods, or we are divine! It is an absolute blasphemy.” Think of the degeneration that has been caused by long standing superstition that we are born sinners, we have inherited sin from the first man, and we are suffering and bound to remain as a sinner all through eternity. This very thought is a blasphemy. A child of God must have his birthright of divine manifestation, instead of suffering eternally for the sin that was committed by the first man or his grand parents or some ancestor. All sins are nothing but errors or mistakes, and the moment the light of knowledge dawns, the sins vanish. Sins are burnt up by Divine flash of the supreme Light! As a spark of fire will burn up a hugh mountain of cotton wool in a moment, so the sins of hundreds of generations, which may appear like a mountain, will be burnt up in no time by the fire of Divine knowledge. Therefore, we must search for that Divine knowledge.

That is the inspiration that inspired Emerson, and therefore, he tried to express it so wonderfully and so beautifully. There it gives you a chance to think that you are the creator of your own destiny, that by your own thoughts and deeds you can be better than you are today; and you are not slave, you are not bound hand and foot by the decree of destiny that you are to suffer and just wait for somebody to help you, and to give you salvation. No, you are the saviour of yourself.

And that idea is given here too:

You must raise yourself by yourself, because your own self is your best friend and your own self can be your worst enemy.

And, therefore, if you aspire for the highest, you will attain to the highest. And if we think that we are sinners, we will become more sinful, and we will suffer, and will be degenerate. And there runs a proverb: “What thou thinkest, thou shalt become”.

Emerson studied the Bhagavad Gita and also the other scriptures. When I was with Mr. Malloy, as I spoke to you at the beginning of my talk, who was the late president of the Emerson Club at Boston, he took me to Emerson’s home, and there I saw his valuable library. It was kept by his sister, just as it was in his lifetime. I saw that he had a volume of the Laws of Manu (Manu-Samhita). Manu was the law-giver of ancient India. They are most wonderful laws. You will find the laws of Moses are just like imitations. Moses lived about fourteen hundred years before Christ. Sri Krishna was older than Moses. The. Bhagavad Gita was older than the time of Moses. And Manu was the first man of this cycle as the first law-giver. He was much older. There you will find that all the best laws that were given to the tribes of Israel by Moses, were anticipated by the great law-giver Manu. Naturally Emerson got inspiration from the law-giver. He had also in his library the Vishnu-Purana, which describes the life of Sri Krishna, and he had the Upanishads, which were translated into Latin, and afterwards into other languages. I saw all those, and I was very much impressed. I saw a letter which Carlyle wrote to Emerson, and in that letter he mentioned about the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, the Song Celestial. Therefore, Ralph Waldo Emerson, understanding the spirit of the Bhagavad Gita, made a free rendering of some of the passages, and he immortalized the Bhagavad Gita by his poem on “Brahm”. The moment you study this, you will be lifted up in a different realm to the oneness of the Spirit.

Emerson says, just like Vedanta says, there is one mind, one Spirit, one Being, one Truth, and one Reality. That one is called by different names. As we read in the Rig Veda, the oldest scripture in the world: “That which exists is One, men call it by various names—ekam sad-vipra bahudha vadanti”. This is the eternal Truth, and from the Truth we have come into existence, in Truth we live, and into the Truth we return after the death of the body. This is the philosophy of Vedanta, and this was expressed by that beautiful poem on “Brahm” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.