Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

Vishnu’s Pursuit of Maya in the Life ofRalph Waldo EmersonbyJohn WulsinHe in whom the love of truth predominates will keep himself alooffrom all the moorings, and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism,and recognize all the opposite negations between which, as walls,his being is swung. (December 1835)This quotation is keynote to our exploration of Ralph Waldo Emerson’sexperience and understanding of Man and Nature as expressed in hisprivate journals and his public essays. Even when unexpressed, the contentof this quotation remains the active principle that induces the transformationof words used in expressing the relation between man and nature, muchas Vishnu and Maya in the Hindu myth metamorphose through ascendingincarnations from insect to elephant to become Man-God and Man-Goddess.The element running through entire nature, which we popularly callFate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us we call Fate. Ifwe are brute and barbarous, the fate takes a brute and dreadful shape.As we refine, our checks become finer. If we rise to spiritual culture,the antagonism takes a spiritual form. In the Hindu fables, Vishnufollows Maya through all her ascending changes, from insect andcrawfish up to elephant; whatever form she took, he took the maleform of that kind, until she became at last woman and goddess, andhe a man and a god. The limitations refine as the soul purifies, but thering of necessity is always perched as the top. (R. W. E., “Fate,” 1852)158