Biography

(1803-1882)   Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose original profession and calling was as a Unitarian minister, left the ministry to pursue a career in writing and public speaking. Emerson became one of America's best known and best loved 19th century figures.

Q: We are always building something, always trying to create an existence which is higher and better and more tranquil. Yet with all this effort, everything remains the same, including our shaky state of happiness.

Emerson's Answer: The difficulty is that we do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made.

Q: Now that I understand how man preys upon man, I also understand something else, which at first is startling. Society publicly praises individuality and independence, but really fears those who stand on their own feet.

A: Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members & Self-reliance is its aversion.

Q: Sometimes an interesting challenge can arouse us to great effort. Please give us a challenge.

A: We are very near to greatness; one step and we are safe, can we not take the leap?

Q: Teachers like J. Krishnamurti and George Gurdjieff say that people falsely value their sufferings, which I have noticed in myself. Pains supply a strange excitement, a fiery agitation, which burns up true life. Please verify this.

A: There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

Q: But maybe only certain types of people are able to set off on the mystic path. Or maybe we can take it up only when we have enough money or leisure; when we are free of the demands of everyday life.

A: You think it is because I have an income which exempts me from you day-labour, that I waste as you call it) my time in sun-gazing and star-gazing. You do not know me. If my debts, as they threaten, should consume what money I have, I should live just as I do now; I should eat worse food, and wear a coarser coat, and should wander in a potato patch instead of in the wood--but it is I, and not my twelve hundred dollars a year, that love God.

Q: Why are these great principles not known and practiced by mankind as a whole?

A: The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and likeness.

Q: Are there frightening hazards in this exploration of the unknown?

A: There is always safety in valor.

Q: What is the nature of this new life towards which we are heading?

A: Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and tomorrow you will arrive there and know them by inhabiting them.

Q: I have a strong wish to live in this kind of calm happiness, so could you be more specific about its attainment? How is it possible to banish strain and pressure in business matters?

A: A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labours are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong . . . (place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all who it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment).

Q: And I can work at this in my own way?

A: Each mind has its own method.

Q: Lately I have been thinking about the difference between a surface reform of our character and the acquisition of a totally transformed nature. Why do esoteric teachings insist upon a completely new nature?

A: Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment, if the same old law-breaker is to keep them?

Q: Some of these facts about human nature shock us out of our idealism, which the mystics would no doubt call false idealism. How can these facts be turned into healing?

A: Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles.

Q: It is a problem to determine which of the modern teachers of these ancient wisdoms are best qualified to help us. Which ones deserve our attention and our respect?

A: Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Q: There must be a reason for it, but I do not understand why the true teachers emphasize cosmic love instead of offering specific advice about harmony in the family and in friendships.

A: Right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.

Q: Why do most of us change our minds so often and so quickly?

A: Our moods do not believe in each other.

Q: "All things obey fixed laws." Please describe one such law.

A: Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.

Q: How would we feel the influence of a truly superior mind?

A: The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.

Q: To feel good we must obviously choose what is truly right for us, but that is our problem. We are so confused regarding what is truly right.

A: That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself. That which shows God in me, fortifies me.

Q: What cosmic law governs our level of happiness?

A: Whilst a man seeks good ends, he is strong by the whole strength of nature&. The perception of this law of laws awakens in the mind a sentiment which we call the religious sentiment and which makes our highest happiness. Wonder is its power to charm and to command. It is a mountain air.

Q: My observations of other people reveal how much they suffer from feeling unnoticed and unappreciated. What is the answer to this?

A: The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

Q: Where does the idea of prayer enter into our studies? People pray for happiness, but no much seems to happen.

A: Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.

Q: What determines whether we go swiftly or slowly along the mystic path?

A: God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.

Q: You say that new power fills us as we blend with cosmic rules. Please explain.

A: Once possessed of the principle, it is equally easy to make forty or forty thousand applications of it.

Q: I have a general sense of weariness in mind and spirit, which prevents me from giving much of myself to these studies. I need a fresh source of psychic power.

A: This energy does not descend into individual life on any other condition than entire possession. It comes to the lowly and simple; it comes to whomsoever will put off what is foreign and proud; it comes as insight; it comes as serenity and grandeur.

Q: Nothing has ever given me more encouragement than these ideas, but I wonder whether they can solve my particular problem, which I prefer not to identify.

A: There is a remedy for every wrong and a satisfaction for every soul.

Q: So the punishments we get from others always start with some unconscious error in ourselves?

A: You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

Q: Because they are unusual men, the mystic masters must have unusual ways to communicate their help to pupils. Correct?

A: One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.

Q: What could I say to a person who complains bitterly at the way life has treated him? He demands rewards and comforts from the people he blames for his misery. Perhaps a simple truth can penetrate his mind.

A: Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Q: May we have a few facts about inner guidance?

A: All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Q: I have carried out these spiritual exercises with excellent results. For one thing, I see the value of reading with a relaxed and an enjoyable state of mind.

A: I would study, I would know; I would admire forever. These works of thought have been the entertainments of the human spirit in all ages.

Q: My question is about rewards. While I know we are working for inner benefits, no for material rewards, I sometimes wonder whether I am gaining anything at all.

A: There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.

Q: Where do we start our quest for freedom and independence?

A: Thought takes a man out of servitude into freedom.

Q: But what if I lack the necessary strong belief to bring this newness to me?

Emerson's Answer: Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Q: I now see that the so-called easy way of behaving like a social sheep is the hard way after all. I want to be my own man.

A: It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Q: We have learned about many of our wrong wishes, so please next give us a right wish.

A: I wish to be a true and free man.

Q: Can we rise above self-contradiction to our natural and peaceful state?

A: We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.

Q: I need the help of something above myself.

A: The soul's communication of truth is the highest event in nature&and this communication is an influx of the Divine Mind into our mind&Every moment when the individual feels invaded by it is memorable.

Q: I do not understand the first principles about cosmic guidance. It seems to require the absence of self-will and self-contradiction, but I would value more information.

A: We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder.

Q: What is the fundamental rule for living peacefully and dynamically, regardless of what comes to us each day?

A: Make circumstances -- all circumstances -- conform to the law of your mind. Be always a king, and not they, and nothing shall hurt you.

Q: We speak of the need for character, but it is such a loosely defined term. What is the mystical definition?

A: Character is the habit of action from the permanent vision of truth. It carries a superiority to all the accidents of life. It compels right relation to every other man--domesticates itself with strangers and enemies.

Q: We would profit by understanding what it means to be natural.

A: He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.

Q: Esotericism says that authentic power consists of inner qualities, like self-knowledge and self-command. How does it define false power?

A: All violence, all that is dreary and repels, is not power, but the absence of power.

Q: I am sure we are unaware of many of our obstacles. Will you please reveal one of them?

A: We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the richness of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence.