Thoreau’s Walden and the Bhagavad-Gita

3927 Words8 Pages

Thoreau’s Walden and the Bhagavad-Gita convey an empowering awakening of one’s consciousness, revealing the self’s capability for individual freedom; although at a first glance, Walden’s emphatic individualism stands at odds with the latter’s principle of oneness. While the nature of the Gita is revelatory and mystical, Walden differs from it in that it primarily consists of Thoreau’s personal reflections and meditation. Thus, the works have decidedly different starting points. However, this apparent contrast becomes negligible in light of their common underlying principles and professed ends. There are different roads to the truth, and each person must find their own by way of detachment and meditation, in sacrifice of comfortable tradition, ignorance, and useless earthly goods. Both works exhort the reader to sublimate their awareness into a higher truth, and to live accordingly.

We all have a unique place and role in life, different dharma so to speak, so there is no single way to achieve liberty and immaculate tranquility. As Krishna tells Arjuna, “By meditating on the self, some men / see the self through the self; / others see by philosophical discipline; / others see by the discipline of action.” (Gita, II.53) The variety of manners in meditation reflects on the variety of people that exist. Moreover, each person should reflect on the value of tradition, since it may be more of an obstacle than a valuable inheritance. In Krishna’s words, “Arjuna, the realm of sacred lore / is nature—beyond its triad of qualities, / dualities, and mundane rewards, / be forever lucid, alive to yourself.” (II.45, p. 38) The speaker points out how one must see beyond tradition when it obscures the higher truth of the self. Thoreau a...

... middle of paper ...

...for it is there that the infinite spirit manifests itself as well: through his fellow human beings. The philosopher has tapped into the eternal consciousness, and now wants to show others how they can transform their views and lives through meditation and experience of the perfect equilibrium. As the Gita puts it, “When ignorance is destroyed / by knowledge of the self, / then, like the sun, knowledge / illumines ultimate reality.” (V.16, p. 61) Thoreau has bathed in the light, and now he wants to show anyone willing how to retrace their path, chart a new one if necessary, in order to lead a good, dignified life in full appreciation and participation in the ineffable, perennial fount of life: the infinite spirit.

Works Cited.

The Bhagavad-Gita. Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller. New York: Bantam, 2004.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New York: Norton, 1992.

Open Document