Emerson’s Thought-stealing Ancients – Wisdom on Wisdom 1
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Now, here again Emerson's quote seems paradoxical. How can the ancients who lived before us steal something from us, who steal our thoughts when we and our thoughts came after us? Actually, yet, if you think deeply, his thought strikes thinking people as insightfully true. He is not using the word stealing here in a literal sense, in the sense of plagiarism, that we come up with a thought, we write something and somebody else takes it away from us.
He is using the word stealing in a different sense. Sometimes, we may get an idea, we may get a thought and we think, this is such a brilliant thought and we may appreciate ourselves, we may laud ourselves for having got such a brilliant thought and for phrasing it so well. And then, if we look back in some literature and we find that some ancient thinker had already thought this thought before us and then we feel disappointed, we feel exasperated because we feel that we deserve the credit for this thought because we thought it up, but when somebody else has already thought it before us.
So, we feel as if they have stolen from us the credit that was due for us, the credit of originality that was due for us. We now recognize it is due for them and thus we feel as if it has been stolen from us. But still, this is interesting that actually, as far as penetrating insights are concerned, they are time independent, whether it is past, present or future.
There have been thinkers who have been coming up with similar insights throughout history. On the spiritual path, there is also a similar phenomenon. This is called as realization.
Here, the sequence is slightly different. Instead of we coming up with some thought and then finding that this has been found in ancient wisdom texts, rather in the process of realization, we read the wisdom texts. After reading those texts, then when we are going through life, we have some experience and we get an insight where we realize that what we had read in that wisdom text was true.
So, this is called realization. That which is a reality, when we accept it to be a reality, that is called a realization. So, realization is something which leads to the internal acceptance of spiritual wisdom.
It is true, but when we accept it to be true through an experience, then it becomes deeply internalized, assimilated. A more common word in today's parlance is epiphany. Epiphany is a sudden moment of deep insight.
That is how the dictionary often defines epiphany. Epiphany can come from various sources. Realization specifically refers to the epiphany that is a reiteration or a confirmation of what we have read in the wisdom texts.
And realization is especially used for spiritual subject matters. So, in the Bhagavad Gita, in the ninth chapter, it is said that राजविद्या राजगुहियं पवित्रमिदमुत्तमं प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्न्यं सुसुखं करतं अव्ययं In line 2, it says that actually this राजविद्या राजगुहियं, this knowledge that is being given, it is the king of knowledge. It is the most confidential of all secrets.
And प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्न्यं, प्रत्यक्षावगमं प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्न्यं, प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्न्यं We can actually realize it internally by practice, by assimilation. And how does this happen? सुसुखं करतं अव्ययं We become joyful on experiencing this. So the spiritual realm is not something which we can perceive with our eyes.
But still, that does not mean it is eternally inaccessible to us. The Bhagavad Gita offers us the process of Yoga by which we can raise our consciousness and thus start perceiving spiritual reality. And when we perceive spiritual reality, at that time we start understanding that what the wisdom texts are talking about is real.
It was initially just conceptual for us, but now it becomes factual through perception from our expanded spiritual cognition. So, in this case, when we get a realization, we don't feel as if the ancients have stolen the wisdom from us, rather we feel grateful to the ancients that they have given the wisdom which can guide us in our life journey. In fact, learning from the past is a very valuable way of enriching ourselves.
Our life is too short to commit all the mistakes. भवो घ्यान तपसा पूतामद भावमावतः Krishna twice in the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita talks about learning from the past and acting according to the examples of the past. He says, in the past, many people by practicing the path of Yoga, they have become purified and they have attained spiritual consciousness.
This is 4.10. And then 4.15 again he says, एवं यात्वाकुतं कर्मः पूर्वाईरपिन्मुक्षुभिन् कुरु कर्मः वतस्मात्वं पूर्वाई पूर्वतरंगुतं He says that, with this knowledge in the past, many people have acted and attained perfection. Similarly, Arjuna, attaining using the same knowledge, you can also act and you can attain perfection. So, the ancients and the moderns, and even if you say the post-moderns or the medievals, whoever they are, ultimately at our core, we are similar.
We are spiritual beings. Our circumstances may be drastically different. But in essence, we are still the same people.
We all long to love and be loved. And the ultimate realization is that, our longing for love cannot be fulfilled in this world. We need a transcendent object of love.
And when we learn to direct our love towards that transcendental object, therein, we find life's supreme satisfaction. We realize that, actually, there is no greater satisfaction than the satisfaction that can come from loving God and serving Him. So, there will be many circumstantial truths that will be different.
But there will be timeless truths that will be always the same. And by enriching ourselves from the wisdom texts like the Bhagavad Gita, it is not that we are learning from the ancients. In the spiritual texts, spiritual is not ancient nor modern.
Spiritual is eternal. It is transcendental. It is revealed in the course of history at particular times, but it is meant for all times.
And it is true at all times. So, these are timeless insights. They are not ancient insights.
They are timeless insights. And we can get timely recites. We can recite, re-understand them again, see for ourselves how they are true, and see for ourselves how life's highest happiness is found in spiritual connection to the supreme reality.
When we get this recite, when we see it for ourselves, then we rejoice. And rejoice repeatedly forever. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.