Influence of Vedanta on Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a great little book that summarizes the thoughts of one of the great thinkers of American literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The reader can recognize Emerson's thought expressed in his writings and his profound kinship with Vedic culture. He possessed sincerity of purpose, breadth of vision, and courage of conviction to recognize the importance of Vedanta and acknowledge his debt to it. Emerson's philosophy illustrates that he was a lifelong Vedantin and he often quoted stories from Bhagavadgita and Upanishads in some of his work. This brings Emerson into a long line of luminaries such as physicist Erwin Schrödinger, David Bohm, Nikola Tesla and philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

In his essay on "Immortality," Emerson writes "The youth puts off the illusion of the child; the man puts off the egotism of manhood, and becomes at last a public and universal soul. He is rising to greater heights but also rising to realities; the outer relations and circumstances dying out, he entering deeper into God, God into him, until the last garment of egotism falls, and he is with God and shares the will and immensity of the First Cause." Here we see parallel to Vedic seers who raised themselves to great heights through the practice of deep meditation, and yoga of mind and body; while in this elevated state, they could see and understand the loftiest ideals of Advaita; there is One Life, One Cosmic principle, and One Consciousness permeating the whole universe.

In the opening verse of his poem "Brahma" he writes;

"If the red slayer thinks he slay,
Or if the slain thinks he is slain,
They no not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again."

Here Emerson expresses support for a hymn in Bhagavadgita; "he who considers this self as a slayer or he who thinks that this self is slain, neither of these knows the truth, for it does not slay nor is it slain."

The author discusses many parallels to Hymns from Upanishads in Emerson's essays such as; "Over soul," "Compensation," "Brahma," and "Worship."

Reference: Emerson and Vedanta by Paramananda

A debate about natural selection and intelligent design

Darwin's theory of evolution and Genesis are not compatible, but few biologists and many theologians have found a common ground to give intelligent design a respectable place in the debate. Professor Behe of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and a leading proponent of intelligent design takes an extreme approach to convince that natural selection is inadequate to explain species selection and its complexity. The author in this book takes a softer approach: He admits that God has used natural election to produce biological diversity and species evolution. Since the theory of evolution includes struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, adaptation, and species variation. He sees an underlying problem because God has used competition for natural resources, food and shelter (habitat), pain, waste, brutality and death in advancing his creation. This poses a fundamental moral problem to the believers of New Testament who see the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus as the savior is to forgive the sin and bring eternal peace to this troubled world; but where is the peace in struggle for existence and survival of the fittest? It appears that New Testament and natural selection are at cross roads. God appears to have designed a path in which species have to kill, maim, and triumph over the weaker species. The author observes that this is not the complete story, because natural selection also pushes the species in a direction that follows community, cooperation and altruism. The history of life has a great deal of association; first single cells, then conglomeration of cells to become multicelluar organisms. Increasing complexity produces an elevated level of association of cells, community behavior, and organization of tissues and organs.

Throughout this book the author discusses the views of Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins who is strong supporter of natural selection over intelligent design. The author suggest that the main problem with scholars like Dawkins is that their unequivocal rejection of Genesis, and unable to comprehend the philosophical and theological sides of natural selection. The argument presented by the author is not sound since the universe is a very violent place where trillions of stars in billions of galaxies burn hydrogen nuclei in a violent thermonuclear reaction releasing intense amount of heat, light and high energy radiation. Stars with planetary system will have billions of asteroids, meteors and comets in constant orbits that can collide and bring immense harm to the planets and life forms. In short, outer space is a dangerous place to live. Therefore one must take a broader look at creation and see that it is God's grand design of space, time and matter that behaves according to the laws of physics he would have created. Matter evolving into life in spacetime is just one of the products of this vast and mysterious universe (or multiverse.)

Reference: The Selfless Gene: Living with God and Darwin by Charles Foster