Walden

[Gauracandra]

It has been many years since I have read Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I was reminded of it by Gaurahari's posting about the paramatma - or as Thoreau called it the 'oversoul'. The one thing that has nagged at me for a while is that I don't know whether the book was fiction or fact. Initially I believed it was all factual. That Thoreau actually went to Walden pond and lived there, as he writes in his book. But somewhere I seem to have picked up the notion that it was a fictionalized account. Sort of his ideal, rather than a reality. Does anyone know the answer?

 

Also, we can take this discussion more generally and discuss Thoreau's notions of spirituality. He was very much influenced by the Vedic scriptures, and writes a number of passages in it (Walden) glorifying the Bhagavad-Gita.

 

Gauracandra

[JRdd]

Walden Pond is not fiction. I have books and essays by Thoreau. I would love to discuss this topic. Did you ever read his essay on nature? He was so God-centred in his outlook. If you go to my website you can find on the links page the link for a site that has some of his writings on it. This may save time if you want to cut and paste on this thread.

http://www.geocities.com/theopenheart

[Gauracandra]

I really wish I had a copy of Walden with me. I remember that there were moments in his writings that were so precise, clear, and profound that I wish I had the exact quote in front of me. I think I remember one along the lines of man simply being a point in infinite space. I really admire people who have a way with words. Very few people have a really good sense of rhythm and poetry to their words. I also recall (I think, its been years) a section where he talks in detail of the lives of ants, and how the ants were fighting. I just have this visual image of the fight from when I first read it. All these years later and I still can visualize it.

 

I couldn't find that link on your site Jayaradhe. I'll look around some more and on the internet to see if there are some specific quotes I can put here. My paraphrasing after years since reading Walden just wont't do it justice

 

Gauracandra

[JRdd]

Hari bol, here is the link to Project Gutenberg, which has many authors' folio online. Scroll down and type in "Thoreau" in the author part and it will pull up seven works by Thoreau, including Walden:

 

http://www.promo.net/pg/index.html

 

[This message has been edited by JRdd (edited 12-16-2001).]

[Gauracandra]

Thanks for the link Jayaradhey. I just did a quick search for some great quotes I recalled.

 

Men frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such -- This whole

earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

. I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man;

All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The

Vedas say, "All intelligences awake with the morning." Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise.

I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug.

Do you think Thoreau was a pessimist? When I first read Walden, there were points that were very moving, but other times when he just seemed to think nothing was worth anything. Just become a recluse and keep away from people. I'm not sure of his mood.

 

Gauracandra

[suryaz]

 

 

http://www.psymon.com/walden/quotes.html

 

If you have built castles in the air,

your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.

Now put the foundations under them.

from the "Conclusion" to Walden

[contributed by Austin Meredith]

 

 

 

[JRdd]

 

 

Hari bol, I have been wanting to get back to this topic but was away. I think that Thoreau had a healthy mixture of both pessimism and optimism. Cynical may be a better word. He was cynical about the ways of the world, but his understanding of deeper matters was his real world. Did you ever read Nathaniel Hawthorne's fictionalized account of the commune started by his transcendentalist friends? Its title is just on the tip of my mind. The Alcotts (including their daughter, author Louisa May Alcott, as well as the rest of the children) and others banded together on some land. They were extremely and endearingly and even amusingly idealistic. They ate only what they grew, which that first and only harsh winter was very very little, so that they became somewhat emaciated. They would not eat root vegetables (they were vegetarians by the way) as they reached toward hell. They would only eat above ground vegetables that reached toward heaven. They made their own clothes, very simple rough things, and their own shoes too, which were quite inadequate for the winter. I admire their determination and idealism, but not their impractical approach. They did not last even a year on that commune. To me it is funny that they were "transcendentalists", as I understand transcendentalism, as taught by Srila Prabhupada, to be a state of actually transcending the expected norms or rules of the world. And Srila Prabhupada's practicality has always demonstrated this understanding. Emerson visited the communal farm a few times, but Thoreau was cynical about it. I gather that with all his indidiuality, he was somehwat of a loner, and happy to be that way, too.

 

I admire him because he didn't just talk, but acted on his convictions, such as making a simple life with nature, at Walden Pond, and his accepting jail rather than pay an unjust poll tax. Have you read his essay on civil disobedience? Every word of it could apply today. Gandhi was directly influenced by Thoreau's nonviolent civil disobedience.

 

But who can know for sure? Imagina someone trying to piece together exactly what kind of person you are, from whatever writings you left behind. People are complex and it is hard even to know ourselves what to speak of anyone else.

 

Jayaradhe (no "y" at the end)

 

 

 

[Gauracandra]

And Srila Prabhupada's practicality has always demonstrated this understanding.

This to me is key. We should not be anti-technology. Whatever develops, we should see in what way it can be used properly, in the service of the Lord. Still, I do admire those very few groups, that have consciously avoided the technological developments of the world, and live a very simple life.

 

Gauracandra

[suryaz]

http://www.psymon.com/walden/quotes.html

 

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!

from the chapter

 

"Where I Lived and What I Lived For" in Walden (contributed by Ron Koster )

 

"Simplicity"

Is it for me what it is for you?

 

Or is it a more complex thing?

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by suryaz (edited 12-23-2001).]

[suryaz]

"Simplicity"

 

I know that when I tried to live what is usually called a life style of simplicity, that lifestyle seemed more complex than the one my primary socialisation prepared me for.

 

Could not the complexity of the situation be more related to the fact that people can easily change their secondary socialisation, but it is impossible (almost) to change primary socialisation?

 

Moreover, there is evidence to support the view that to adopt (or forced to adopt; as in colonisation), a lifestyle that is fully incongruent with or conflicts with one's primary socialisation, this can lead to, depression, mental illness and at the extreme, schizophrenia.

 

With the above in view, could it not be argued that very often, the pursuit for simplicity becomes an even more complex lifestyle than the one to which one is primarily socialised?

 

I guess one can only simplify one’s lifestyle to a certain degree before, complexity, depression, mental illness etc begin.

 

 

So, "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity" ---

 

Can it be for me what it is for you?

 

Could it be that, to find "simplicity" we just have to “let it (things) be”?

 

Humm! "que sera sera"

 

Krsna's sweet will

 

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by suryaz (edited 12-24-2001).]

[JRdd]

These are interesting conjectures, Suryaz. My input is that in accepting lifestyle of the devotee in the ashram actually healed my depression, and that, conversely, the more I find myself in situations which oppose that lifestyle, the more I find myself at odds with this world in general.

 

Of course one could then say that perhaps my primary socialization is actually the customs of the temple devotee, which I have carried from another lifetime, but then the discussion at that point becomes moot.

 

Simple living, high thinking...

 

How about that one for this discussion? Thoreau was definitely into high thinking.