Is Ralph Waldo Emerson the most spiritual man American ever produced?

Answer 1

I love Emerson.


"TO BE GREAT IS TO BE MISUNDERSTOOD"

Answer 2

I love Emerson's works.. I can't say he was THE most spiritual, but he'd be in my top 10!

Answer 3

Emerson was a Speaker, but you can't measure spirituality in terms of 'most'.

Answer 4

I like Emerson. Spiritual is good, religious is very bad.

Answer 5

Mr. Emerson was indeed very spiritual. He was influenced greatly by the vedas, and incorporated the philosophy into his writings.

He said of the Bhagavad-Gita:

"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavat-Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spake to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions that exercise us."

In his poem "Brahma", he writes:

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

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

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.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek over good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

Some of his stanzas were almost directly quoted from these lines in the Bhagavad gita:

"He who thinks that the living entity is the slayer or that the entity is slain does not understand. One who is in knowledge knows that the self slays not nor is slain. (Bg. 2:19)

"O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of heat and cold, happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and sumer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."(Bg. 2:14)

Emerson is the first great American literary figure who read deeply and fully the available philosophic literature from India. It certainly shows in his own writings. In a letter to Max Mueller, Emerson wrote: "All my interest is in Marsh's Manu, then Wilkins' Bhagavat Geeta, Burnouf's Bhagavat Purana and Wilson's Vishnu Purana, yes, and few other translations. I remember I owed my first taste for this fruit to Cousin's sketch, in his first lecture, of the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna and I still prize the first chapters of the Bhagavat as wonderful."

By 1856 Emerson had read the Kathopanisad and his ideas were increasingly reflecting Indian influence. His poems, such as Hamatreya (a poem composed in 1845) showed he had digested his Indian philosophic readings well. Hamatreya apparently was inspired by a passage from the Vishnu Purana (Book IV). He was concerned with the subject of illusion-maya. He wrote about it. In his essay Illusions he said: "I find men victims of illusions in all parts of life. Children, youths, adults and old men, all are led by one bauble or another. Yogavindra, the goddess of illusion, is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo."

In his poem Maya he wrote:

Illusion works impenetrable,
Weaving webs innumerable,
Her gay pictures never fail,
Crowds each other, veil on veil,
Charmer who will be believed,
By man who thirsts to be deceived.

Answer 6

I think Leo Tolstoy was. . but I don't really know much of what Ralph had to say. I'll look it up.

Answer 7

Close. But I'd vote for Joseph Smith, jun.

Answer 8

I doubt it. no offense to emerson, but we shouldn't be labeling people anyway...

Answer 9

He's right up there for sure. He and Thoreau.

Answer 10

says who?