The English Literature Journal

Vol. 1, No. 5 (2014): 138-142

Article
Open Access

ISSN: 2348-3288

The Vedantic Philosophy in Walden

Pradeep Kumar Srivastva* and Vinod Solanki
Department of English, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, UP, 273001, India.

*Corresponding author: PK Srivastva; e-mail: pks4479@yahoo.com

Received: 12 August 2014

Accepted: 31 August 2014

Online: 05 September 2014

ABSTRACT
Thoreaus Walden is the meeting point of the East and the West in which the Indian Vedantic philosophy merges into
the American Transcendentalism declaring the Divinity of Man. The essence of Walden is the philosophy of the
Vedas. Thoreau, as one of the chief exponents of the Transcendental Movement, strived to proceed towards the
subtle level, and through self-experience, living on the coast of Walden pond; he realized the celestial music and
transitory domain. The brightness and glow of that realm is a state when attained converts the perspectives of a
common man. The mundane and earthly being becomes the cosmic force. Thoreau established the cardinal and
rudimentary principle of Vedanta in Walden. Modern man has become selfish and attached to comfort and luxuries.
He is unable to discern the province of the Holy and the Divine. If he would have realized the potentiality of the soul,
the world would have become a better place to him. Thoreau has quoted variously from the Vedas. The impact of the
spiritual philosophy of the Vedas seems the core philosophy of Thoreaus Walden; as the sage has pronounced the
superiority of spiritual and transcendent over the material and empirical. Thoreau has revealed his great sense of
regret because people are attached very much to the materialistic life based on mechanical and artificial pattern.
They have no sense of realization of the divine song of morning air. He explicated that every morning is a cheerful
invitation to divine grandeur and glory. Under the pressure of trivialities of life, man understands nothing, and
ignores the Higher Power. It is the holy duty of man that he should keep his body, the temple, the home of the soul,
sound and healthy. It would help him for the realization of God. Thoreaus notion reverberates the Vedantic
philosophy of India. This present study explores the influence of Vedanta on Walden.

Keywords: East and West, Philosophy, Vedanta, Walden, Transcendentalism

INTRODUCTION
The boon of the Almighty to human beings, a beautiful
gift, and life on the planet nurtured by nature was a
harmonious and magnificent beginning. The
intelligence and wisdom conferred on man, by the
divine effulgence explicate the oneness, cohesion and
amalgamation of all the aspect of life force. The
elevated and exalted territory of humanity was
designed by the Supreme to accelerate the
advancement towards the ethereal domain. The
aesthetic and superb realm of the Absolute is the
epitome of hope and harmony. The concord and
confluence of the universe revealed the celestial
veracity of the existence. The Vedantic philosophy is
the essence of Henry David ThoreausWalden in which
transcendentalist has showed the superiority of
spiritual material.

and glory of cosmic existence. The upheavals and

whirlpools in the thought-world have resulted into the
catastrophe. The aspiration for achieving something
higher is inherent in every soul. The ephemeral world
of turbulence and turmoil is unable to diminish the
aura of divine consciousness. The worldliness and
materiality are encumbering humankind unable man to
rise beyond the lower plane because it is inert and
ineffective. Through their glorious and spiritual ideals
Henry David Thoreau illumined mankind to perceive
the power and puissance of the inherent glory.
According to Thoreau the strive to seek the Eternal and
the Infinite will erect the edifice of self-fulfillment, selfabnegation and self-surrender for the attainment of the
universal consciousness.

The mundane and mental being due to ignorance and

delusion thinks appearance as reality. Thus he has
separated himself from the grandiose and higher
existence. The division has annihilated the elegance

The ideas and the essence of some of the Upanishadic

texts have been variously used by Thoreau in Walden.
The present manuscript works out the influence of the
select texts of Vedanta. We have tried to make a humble
attempt of exploring direct and indirect impact of these
texts in Thoreaus writings.

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Vedanta: Oneness of all Beings

Vedanta is the conclusion of the Vedas, the culmination
of divine knowledge and the ancient sacred literature
of India. It proclaims that the Brahma is true. He is the
All who is beyond pleasure and pain, good and evil, joy
and sorrow. The Brahma is the Absolute, the Whole, the
Truth, the Reality, the impeccable blazing eternal
existence. His manifestation into various forms and
names multiplies the Divine aura. Vedanta announces
that the Being reveals itself in every soul declaring the
inherent nature of all beings which is to experience and
realize God and the potential divinity of the soul.
Vedanta preaches to manifest the divinity within and
the ideal is the oneness of all beings and communion of
the self to the supreme Self. Vedanta affirms that
human beings are the part of the cosmic existence and
unison with the ultimate Truth will lead the being
towards salvation. This pronouncement of Vedanta
establishes the wholeness and completeness of life and
the advancement towards the supernal, the eternity
and infinity, as Vivekananda explicates:
The Vedanta, therefore, as a religion must be intensely
practical. We must be able to carry it out in every part
of our lives. And not only this, the fictitious
differentiation between religion and the life of the
world must vanish, for the Vedanta teaches onenessone life throughout. The ideals of religion must cover
the whole field of life, they must enter into all our
thoughts and more and more into practice [1].
Vedanta reached New England in the early decades of
the nineteenth century influencing Emerson, Thoreau
and Whitman who through the Gita, the Kathopanishad,
the Kenopanishad, and the Harivansh Purana
incorporated Vedantic ideals to begin the
Transcendental Movement. As Vedanta states to seek
communion with the cosmic energy, similarly
Transcendentalism proclaims to reach the level of
supreme existence going beyond the conjectures of
materiality and worldliness. They as the precursors of
the movement exclaim to realize the inherent power
and potency to achieve the Truth and Reality. The idea
reverberates
in
Emersons
Brahma,
Thoreaus Walden and Whitmans Leaves of Grass in
which they find a sense of calmness and serenity while
experiencing the divine effulgence during the
composition of their masterpieces.

Thoreau has beautifully incorporated the luster and

radiance of nature in Walden. He found nature as
the superior and sumptuous force striving for the
confluence of divergent forces by motivating man
through the harmony and balance which is inherent in
nature.
Thoreau has declared the supremacy of the Higher
power which is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and
Omnipresent. He is greatly inspired by Vedanta and
exclaims inWalden:
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous
and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, I
meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma and
Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the
Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a
tree with his crust and water-jug. I meet his servant
come to draw water for his master, and our buckets, as
it were, grate together in the same well. The
pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of
the Ganges [2].
The eastern philosophy is value-centric and the
western philosophy is existential. Modern age is
confronting chaos and commotion. The changes in
nature are indicating the genesis of a novel era, the
descend of the golden age. Therefore the realization of
God-consciousness
and
truth-consciousness
is
emerging as the crux for the convergence of the East
and the West. The perceptions are united and Indian
Vedantic philosophy and Thoreau arrest to inherit the
transcendental philosophy based on simplicity, truth,
non-violence, purity and spirituality. The waves of
transcendentalism have emerged from the eastern
ocean of Vedanta.
Walden Advocates Vedantic Philosophy
Vedanta has advocated purity, tranquility, self-control,
endurance, faith in the Almighty, simplicity, nonviolence, truth and good conduct as the cardinal virtues
of humanity which reverberates in the preaching of
Thoreau. Walden is the foundation of the confluence of
the East and the West. Thoreau believed that both the
East and the West are incomplete individually. The
supra-rational aspect of the East and the intellectual
notion of the West when amalgamated will establish
the citadel of glorious and spiritual atmosphere
proceeding towards universal harmony.

Walden: An Experience in Realization of the Self

Walden is the outcome of Thoreaus self-realization,
self-experience which reflects the influence of Vedanta
and its deeper impact is apparent in his writings.
Thoreau states that the divine and spiritual puissance
is inherent in man. He glorifies the holy spirit and
enumerates that human consciousness is part of the
divine beauty of nature. Nature as the subtle and higher
province exalted the cosmos with divine beatitude and
beatific joy. The components of the universe became
the channel of celestial existence. Time and after an
affinity has been experienced to the magnificence of the
Ultimate, the Unknowable and the Unspeakable.

The spiritual and supramental existence about which

the vein of rishis of India explicates is paramount
in Walden. Thoreau reverberates the ideal of an
Indian Yogiand therefore amalgamates the East and the
West on a higher foundation. The ancient wisdom of
India actually envelops the glorious deliberation of
prophet from the West and dissolves the boundaries of
not only physical bondages but also emancipates
humanity confined in a congested domain of states and
countries. This is what the true civilization is about
contended by Thoreau.

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Thoreau denied the external world and preferred the

simple life than luxurious and material one. During his
sojourn in Concord near Walden pond Thoreau
practisedYoga, the treasure of India, a passage towards
the divine glory, fulfilled his quest for self-realization.
Vedanta left an unfading mark on Thoreau. Leading his
life at Walden, Thoreau was elevated towards the
higher territory which is beyond mundane
existence. His broodings and contemplating about the
cosmic visions was from the motivation he received
from Indian philosophy.
Vedanta emphasizes on inward potential and proclaims
that a man is known for his virtue and not because of
his outward appearance, for his spiritual achievement
and eternal elevation. Thoreau asserted that a noble
man is contented and lives the life of simplicity,
independence and truth, which the Indian ideals have
pronounced.
Thoreau believed that people are running after
materialism but they are unable to perceive the
rapture of higher living. The mechanical and artificial
standard of living is encumbering the simple and innate
qualities of man. Thoreau was highly inspired by the
doctrine of the Gita which explicates that an
individual has to go on performing his duties
without worrying for the fruits thereof. The notion of
work for works sake inspires the being to work wholeheartedly which spontaneously gains the fruit of hard
work and diligence. Mans destiny is established by his
efforts for a positive and true action.
Thoreau explicates that the unawareness of the
seraphic kingdom and holy spirit is the denial to the
existence of a sacred empire and the growth then is
towards darkness and suffering. He pronounces
in Walden:
That man who does not believe that each day contains
an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has
yet profaned, has despaired of Life, and is pursuing a
descending and darkening way [3].
Each day is joyous and beautiful, the individual should
realize the celestial glory and euphoric music of the
divine existence. This realization is beyond the
sensuous and mechanical, something cosmical, an
everlasting fervour of the aura of the invisible and the
intangible. Thoreau reverberates the ideal of Vedanta
and asserts:
The Vedas say, All intelligences awake with the
morning. Poetry and art, and the fairest and most
memorable of the actions of men, date from such an
hourTo him whose elastic and vigorous thought
keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual
morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the
attitudes and labours of men. Morning is when I am
awake and there is a dawn in me [4].

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According to Thoreau the morning is not only the

beginning of a new day but also the genesis of a novel
era of spirituality and morality. Thoreau urges to the
Lord to perpetuate this day and preaches humanity to
kindle the everlasting flame of this sunrise.
Thoreau reckoned that spending a life which does not
inherit the divine glory is just travelling through the
passage of time without any goal to attain. The physical
world is the workshop of an individual. It does not
mean that the actions of man should be mere
functioning of a dispassionate and superficial existence.
There should be an aspiration to rise beyond
selfishness and ulterior self- centered motives. He
asserts:
The millions are awake enough for physical labour;
but only one in a million is awake enough for effective
intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to
a poetic or divine life [5].
Aurobindo carries the torch blazed by Thoreau for the
emergence of divine life on earth. Aurobindo
announced to elevate the self towards the supramental
state through spiritual and psychic upliftment. He
reiterates that this will bring down a divine life upon
earth, a life enlightened with the supraterrestrial
power and descend of the gnostic being on earth.
This being would be self-fulfilled, self-exalted, selfexperienced and self-knowledgeable. Aurobindo states:
A DIVINE life upon earth, the ideal we have placed
before us, can only come about by a spiritual change of
our being and a radical and fundamental change, an
evolution or revolution of our nature [6].
The ideal of Vedanta which glorifies spiritual
awakening and restoration of the ancient treasure of
knowledge of India inspired Thoreau and Aurobindo
through his efforts perfected the magnificent principle.
Thoreau contends for the resurgence of humanity not
by artificial aspects but through eternal and infinite
instruments. The celestial joy consciously endeavours
to uplift man. It creates the morally enriched
atmosphere by painting a magnificent picture of
divinity and simplicity as perceptible in Vedanta. Every
individual is allotted the task to be accomplished and
so he descends on the earth. In the most turbulent and
critical situation also his puissance and divinity did not
let him sink in the ocean of despair. No situation is
worse if it is dealt with courage and audacity. Thoreau
asserts:
I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and
see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not,
when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did
not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor
did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite
necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the
marrow of life.. [7].
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The above lines remind us of Robert Frosts poem

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening where the
poet enumerates that man as the part of the Supreme
should accomplish and achieve the goals of life which
are destined to him.
The ideal of oneness of the universe which Vedanta
asserts to be the sole aim reverberates in Thoreau. He,
like a rock, is determined and firm on the conviction of
Vedantic ideals. Vedanta is the magnet which has
attracted various scholars, poets, saints and authors of
the world. The thing for which India should be proud is
her highest spiritual consciousness, one of the traits of
Vedanta. The great intellectuals and practitioners of
spirituality value the crux of Vedanta that is the
Supreme is the All, is everything, every being and the
variations in the form of certain components is His
manifestations only. The grandeur of Thoreau is so
remarkable and adorable that it becomes trivial to
materialize the ideals of simplicity and originality
which is inherent in his very nature. Thoreau is one of
those prophets who not only studied Vedanta but also
practised it while living on the shore of Walden pond, in
Concord. The solitude of nature is the calmness and
serenity of the Absolute who is beyond the common
understanding and is the Great, the Supreme, the One
as Thoreau reiterates:
THIS is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one
sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and
come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself
[8].
Mans life is wholly moral and virtuous. The transitory
and earthly effort to upsurge towards materialism is
just a movement in a void. There is no power, no glory,
no purity, no delight, and no luminousness only exists
hatred, envy, anger, ego, revenge and greed. Morality is
the virtue which has transformed and elevated
humanity again and again. The mental being thinks that
the higher province and its values are unattainable.
Simplicity and purity are just an appearance. But when
Thoreau is perceived in the light of these virtues its
conspicuous that goodwill and morality pave the path
for a higher living. Gandhi, Subhashchandra Bose,
Mother Teresa and many great prophets achieved
higher goals because of their wide perspective and
higher spiritual values. Thoreau affirms:
Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an
instants truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the
only investment that never fails [9].

A command over our passions, and over the external

senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by the
Ved to be indispensable in the minds approximation to
God. Yet the spirit can for the time pervade and control
every member and function of the body, and transmute
what in form is the grossest sensuality into purity and
devotion [10].
Thoreau reverberates the ideal of Vedanta which
announces to live a spiritual life in this material world
and perceive the inward power to realize and manifest
it outwardly. The temporal world is the passage to selfrealization and self-experience. If it would be discarded
then transmutation of a higher order would not exist.
The establishment of the universal and higher law will
gain leeway through the transubstantiation of gross
into subtle. Thoreau exclaims:
The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the
feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind
travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the
highways of the world - how deep the ruts of tradition
and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage,
but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the
world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the
mountains. I do not wish to go below now [11].
He explicates that nature strives to infuse subtle
dreams and they are highly imaginative and outcome of
a visionary experience. The fulfillment and gratification
of those sacred citadels is impossible without strong
foundation. The fundamental issue is of a powerful
base and it could be established through the truthful
and universal efforts of a being. The expansion of the
ancient laws will result into the establishment of
liberal, novel, universal and higher laws.
The Brahma of Vedanta is inculcated by Thoreau and
he perceives the perennial knowledge with piety and
reverence. He asserts that those people who think that
spiritual upliftment is the belief in orthodox and
superstitious aspects, they are poor. The spiritual
poverty cannot exalt mankind towards the aesthetic
and celestial domain. The lack of possession and wealth
is the poverty in the material and mundane context
which can be reformed. The lack of values and moral
creates an emotional vacuum and man loses all
consolation and solace.

CONCLUSION

Vedanta declares that control on our desires and

ephemeral joys will invigorate strength and puissance
for positive advancement. The soul is the sentient and
perpetual device of the Supreme. The mental being is
always worried to enrich and elevate himself
outwardly. But the external development degrades by
the passage of time and man is left bare handed devoid
of supramental and supracosmic divine glory. Thoreau
then declares what the Vedanta proclaims:

The assimilated knowledge of divinity and magnificent

territory of the Almighty is interpreted by Vedanta. The
lustre and aura of human wisdom and intelligence
seeks culmination through the ideals of Vedanta.
Nothing in the world can be rejected and the
transformation on a higher level is expedited through
the principles of stalwarts like Thoreau. The influence
of Vedanta on Thoreau and the impact of Thoreau is
conveying the message of oneness and universality.
The doctrine of the potential divinity of the soul and
elevation of the mundane towards the supraterrestrial
realm propagated by the prophet would endeavour

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for resurrection of humanity and its enrichment. The

confluence of the supra-rational and intellectual
notions has amalgamated the world in a single thread
of divinity of every being.

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Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation and Other

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