From the book "Emerson in His Journals"
Oct 1? 1848
My friend and I - owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavat Geeta. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spake to us, nothing small or unworthy but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age & climate had pondered & thus disposed of the same questions that exercise us.
Oct-Nov, 1845
The Indian teaching through its cloud of legends has yet a simple & grand religion like a queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to speak he truth, love others as yourself, & to despise trifles. The East is grand--& makes Europe appear the land of trifles. Identity, identity! friend & foe are of one stuff, and the stuff is such & so much that the variations of surface are unimportant. All is for the soul, & the soul is Vishnu (God); & animals & stars are transient paintings; & light is whitewash; & durations are deceptive; and form is imprisonment and heaven itself is a decoy. That which the soul seeks is resolution into Being above form;..liberation from existence is its name. Cheerful & noble is the genius of this cosmogony. Hari is always gentle & serene-- ; all his games are benevolent
Spring? 1859
When India was explored, & the wonderful riches of Indian theologic literature found, that dispelled once for all the dream about Christianity being the sole revelation--for, here in India---there in China, were the same principles, the same grandeurs, the like depths moral & intellectual.
Oct 1? 1848
My friend and I - owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavat Geeta. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spake to us, nothing small or unworthy but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age & climate had pondered & thus disposed of the same questions that exercise us.
Oct-Nov, 1845
The Indian teaching through its cloud of legends has yet a simple & grand religion like a queenly countenance seen through a rich veil. It teaches to speak he truth, love others as yourself, & to despise trifles. The East is grand--& makes Europe appear the land of trifles. Identity, identity! friend & foe are of one stuff, and the stuff is such & so much that the variations of surface are unimportant. All is for the soul, & the soul is Vishnu (God); & animals & stars are transient paintings; & light is whitewash; & durations are deceptive; and form is imprisonment and heaven itself is a decoy. That which the soul seeks is resolution into Being above form;..liberation from existence is its name. Cheerful & noble is the genius of this cosmogony. Hari is always gentle & serene-- ; all his games are benevolent
Spring? 1859
When India was explored, & the wonderful riches of Indian theologic literature found, that dispelled once for all the dream about Christianity being the sole revelation--for, here in India---there in China, were the same principles, the same grandeurs, the like depths moral & intellectual.
