Brahma
by Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803--1882

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.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.



study note:
"Brahma" was published in the Atlantic in 1857, but Emerson had been experimenting with it for many years. Miller calls it "New England's old Puritanism decked out in Oriental imagery." Here we see many ideas from Emerson's reading of Hindu verse and philosophy as he considers the doctrine of the "absolute unity." In Hindu religious thought, Brahma is "underlying, unchanging reality." It is best understood in contrast to Maya, "the changing, illusory world of appearance." According to Arthur Christy, Brahma is infinite, serene, invisible, imperishable, beyond cognition, indissoluble, immutable, formless, one and eternal. Maya, on the other hand, is finite, fleeting, visible, perishable, changeable, manifold. One of the sources for this poem is from the Bhagavad Gita: "He who believes that this spirit can kill, and he who thinks it can be killed, both of these are wrong in judgment. It neither kills nor is killed. It is not born nor dies at any time. It has no origin, nor will it ever have an origin. Unborn, changeless, eternal, both as to future and past time, it is not slain when the body is killed."