BRAHMA.
THE SUBTLE VERSES IN WHICH EMERSON GAVE EXPRESSION TO THE MYSTICISM INVESTING HINDU RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.
The four stanzas composing Emerson's poem "Brahma" afford perhaps in the smallest compass the best example of the Concord philosopher's subtle mode of expression with a meaning so elusive as to require careful thought on the reader's part to render it intelligible.
There is a pleasing vagueness which the music of the lines imbues with a nameless charm. Here, more than anywhere else, Emerson has caught in a few simply written stanzas the very essence of mysticism—strange, fleeting, and yet full of suggestiveness that shifts and shimmers like the shadow and the sunlight of which the poem tells.
The interpretation of the poem is to be found in an understanding of what Brahma really means in the Hindu religion and philosophy. It is not a personal divinity; but rather the creative force of the universe, an all-pervading presence, bringing power, devotion, and holiness, unlimited by time or space, and signifying soul and spirit. Hence, Brahma views with equal unconcern both life and death, both doubt and faith, both shame and fame. Those who attain to a true conception of this ideal have no need to think of heaven, since heaven is everywhere.
By RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.