Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Oversoul”.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Oversoul”.

 Let us learn the revelation of all nature and thought;

that the Highest dwells within us,

that the sources of nature are in our own minds.

As there is no screen or ceiling

     between our heads and the infinite heavens,

     so there is no bar or wall in the soul where we,

     the effect, cease, and God, the cause, begins.

I am constrained every moment to acknowledge

a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.

There is deep power in which we exist

     and whose beatitude is accessible to us.

 Every moment when the individual

feels invaded by it is memorable.

It comes to the lowly and simple;

     it comes to whosoever will put off

     what is foreign and proud;

     it comes as insight;

     it comes as serenity and grandeur.

 The soul’s health consists

in the fullness of its reception.

     For ever and ever the influx

     of this better and more universal self

     is new and unsearchable.

Within us is the soul of the whole;

the wise silence, the universal beauty,

to which every part and particle

is equally related; the eternal One.

When it breaks through our intellect, it is genius;

     when it breathes through our will, it is virtue;

     when it flows through our affections,

     it is love.