A few weeks ago, I happened to read a quote by Wayne Dyer who is a well known motivational speaker. The quote says “We are all infinite spiritual beings having a temporary human experience. Find that within yourself ".
I have heard of Wayne Dyer, and have read some of his writings and blogs, but this quote above from Dyer took me by pleasant surprise as it reflects exactly our Vedantic declarations. With all the due credits to such motivational gurus for their writings, I still could not stop thinking that all this philosophical thoughts in the Western world ought to have some connections to Eastern philosophies and specifically to our Vedas from Bharat (India). I decided to read to look for connections and started reading further, but did not have to go too long.
In his writings, Wayne Dyer refers to his guidance on philosophy from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) who was a famous essayist and philosopher and started the "Transcedentalist' movement in America and Europe in late 19th century. Though Ralph Emerson had been brought up in a Christian thoughts and trained as a minister, he was greatly influenced by the writings on Hindu Religion and on Vedas by another well known thinker and philosopher Henry Thomas Colebrooke. Henry colebrooke spent many years in Bharat (India) in the 18th century (1765-1837) studying on Sanskrit and Hindu scriptures. He wrote a well known treatise “Essays on Vedas” in 1805. This essay is now available to read and download in Google books (http:// books.google.com).
Wikipedia says Ralph Emerson was greatly influenced by Vedas and much of his writings has strong shades of non-dualism (Advaita Vedanta). In his essay 'The Over-Soul' Emerson says the following:
"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."
Infact the term 'Over-Soul' can be considered as the closest English equivalent of the Vedic term 'Paramatman' . This essay 'Over-Soul' by Emerson is also available for all to read and download in Google books.
Another great poet and philosopher who influenced Ralph Emerson and became his friend and was his contemporary was Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) who had most beautifully expressed his admiration of reading Bhagavad Gita every morning as follows:
"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions."
Thoreau was a naturalist and poet and a follower of Vegetarianism. He is quoted to have said ""Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."
Mahatma Gandhi was deeply influenced by Thoreau's writings and in fact took the idea of Civil Disobedience from him.
Another philosopher who brought Eastern philosophical knowledge to the western world was the French thinker Victor Cousin (1792-1867). Ralph Emerson was introduced to scriptures from Bharat (India) by Victor Cousin.
Thus goes all the connections of these western philosophers to our rich, exquisite, unparalleled and priceless collections of Vedas, Upanishads and of course the crown jewel, the Bhagavad-Gita. Undoubtedly, there has been no society, no country, no civilization in the history of the earth with such advanced and scientific contributions to philosophy as that of our Vedas. As Emerson quoted above, in comparison (to scriptures from Bharat) all the rest of the world's contributions seem puny and trivial. The more I read on the western thinkers and philosophies, the more I see the connections to our scriptures. I feel it is only the tip of an iceberg that I have scratched - there is a huge mountain of knowledge that needs to be read and understood ! I don't think our lifetime is enough to go through all of them, but I am determined to keep reading.
Hari Om.