BRAHMA

by: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

F 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. Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanish'd 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 lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
Greatly influenced by a sacred text of Hinduism, Katha-Upanishad, Brahma is a philosophical explication of the universal spirit by that name. The poetic form of elegiac quatrain is used to represent the solemn nature of the subject. Throughout the poem, Brahma appears as the only speaker, sustaining the continuity of the work. That the spirit is the only speaker signifies not only its absolute nature but also its sustaining power, upon which the existence of the entire universemetaphorically, the poemis based. Here's a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, titled "Brahma". It's remarkable that at the time that it was written, a devout and studied Christian minister such as Emerson, would engage his thoughts on Eastern religion/philosophy. He seems to have been truly a learned man who dedicated himself fully to religion and his belief in God, but not being single-minded or only inwardly focused. Emerson sought the teachings and wisdom of other religions to ease his peradventures: not strictly adhering to fideism, or believing solely in faith--over reason--to find spirituality. [For those interested in the egoist Essey:] This is moving to me because I believe that most of the religions in the world all stem from the same divinity. This God or spirit being the same, or drawing from the same well, is evident in the overlapping notions of most of the major world religions. At the root, most religions and philosophies commonly agreed upon by man share a common ethos at their cores. Emerson seems to share this sentiment when he told his Western readers--largely unfamiliar with Eastern

religion and confued by terms such as Brahma--that they may substitute "Jehovah" for "Brahma" to help them understand the poem. Here's the poem, but perhaps it would better be entitled "Brahman," which is the idea of the world-soul, as opposed to Brahma, one of the Hindu God trinity {Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva}. Although perhaps Emerson is thinking of Brahma as being the deification/personification of Brahman, the world-spirit.