Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

point of view rather than releasing one to sail with the winds of truth. Theseterrors, these aspects of fate, are not to be shunned or succumbed to, butare to be battled with, overcome. The question is not fate or no fate but willman’s soul be active in relation to fate? For actually man can even makefate, can even contribute to the circumstances of the world. “The man mustbe so much that he must make all circumstances.” For example, “Perceptionis not whimsical but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it afterme, and in course of time all mankind—although it may chance that no onehas seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.”Man-Vishnu has a responsible role as creator on several levels of the worldhis children will inherit.Man can only remain creatively independent of limiting, outwardcircumstances through the activity of his own soul. But as man comes closerto center, he becomes passively and vertically aligned with, in contrast to,the horizontal, outer forces of fate, the forces of a universal higher self. Forwhat is the self-reliant man’s “docility to our own law” in relation to theGod within? The secret to self-reliance is Self-reliance.Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childliketo the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutelytrustworthy was seated at their heart; working through theirhands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, andmust accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; andnot minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards, fleeingbefore a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeyingthe Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.We are but organs of an immense intelligence and “when we discerntruth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams.” Thoughthe self-reliant man must battle externally imposed limitations, Emersonencourages him to “accept the place the divine providence has found foryou, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.” Thereis a universal force in whose light each individual becomes man, in whoseservice is freedom. In this light, he “who has more obedience than I mastersme, though he should not raise his finger.” Man hovers at the threshold,between enhancing obedience to his higher “me,” and diminishing slaveryto “not me.”In the heart of these man-centered, self-centered years Emersonwrites The Poet (1841). Formerly more involved with the polarity in his168