 Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
| Author | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
|---|---|
| Series | Essays |
| Genre | Essay |
Publication date | 1841 |
| Pages | 28 |
| Preceded by | Heroism |
| Followed by | Circles |
| Text | The Over-Soul atWikisource |
"The Over-Soul" is an essay byRalph Waldo Emerson first published in 1841. With the humansoul as its overriding subject, several general themes are treated: (1) the existence and nature of the human soul; (2) the relationship between the soul and the personalego; (3) the relationship of one human soul to another; and (4) the relationship of the human soul toGod. The influence ofEastern religions, includingVedanta, is plainly evident, but the essay also develops ideas long present in theWestern philosophical canon (e.g., in the works ofPlato,Plutarch,Plotinus,Proclus—all of whose writings Emerson read extensively throughout his career) and the theology ofEmanuel Swedenborg.[1][2]: 78ff
With respect to the four themes listed above, the essay presents the following views: (1) the human soul isimmortal, immensely vast, and beautiful; (2) the conscious ego is slight and limited in comparison to the soul despite the fact that humans habitually mistake their ego for their true self; (3) at some level, the souls of all people are connected, but the precise manner and degree of this connection is not spelled out; and (4) that the soul is created by and has an existence that is similar to God, or that God exists within humans.
The Over-Soul is now considered one of Emerson's greatest writings, though some scholars have argued that attempts to cast it as akeystone to understanding his work are misguided.[3]
The essay includes the following passage:
The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, thatOver-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart.[4]
For Emerson the term denotes a supreme underlying unity which transcends duality or plurality, much in keeping with the philosophy ofAdvaita Vedanta. This non-Abrahamic interpretation of Emerson's use of the term is further supported by the fact that Emerson's Journal records in 1845 suggest that he was reading theBhagavad Gita andHenry Thomas Colebrooke's essays on theVedas.[5] Emerson goes on in the same essay to further articulate his view of this dichotomy between phenomenal plurality andtranscendental unity:
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. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.[4]
"Over-soul" has more recently come to be used by Eastern philosophers such asMeher Baba and others as the closest English language equivalent of the Vedic concept ofParamatman.[6] (InSanskrit the wordparam means "supreme" andatman means "soul"; thusParamatman literally means "Supreme-Soul".[7]) The term is used frequently in discussion of Eastern metaphysics and has also entered western vernacular. In this context, the term "Over-soul" is understood as the collective indivisible Soul, of which all individual souls or identities are included. The experience of this underlying reality of the indivisible "I am" state of the Over-soul is said to be veiled from the human mind bysanskaras, or impressions, acquired over the course of evolution and reincarnation. Such past impressions form a kind of sheath between the Over-soul and its true identity, as they give rise to the tendency of identification with the gross differentiated body. Thus the world, asapperceived through the impressions of the past appears plural, while reality experienced in the present, unencumbered by past impressions (the unconditioned or liberated mind), perceives itself as the One indivisible totality, i.e. the Over-soul.
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