Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Teacher

Emerson, the American transcendentalist, poet, essayist, and reformer is one of the founders of America's cultural heritage. He also serves as a spiritual teacher, a guide to awakening our slumbering spiritual perception. In countless ways, including the example of his life, he showed "the holy and mysterious sources of life" were available to anyone, at any hour of the day, who can "listen for the right word." He taught the harmony of one's mind is the basis for inner development and self-transformation. As he wrote in The Times, "There was never so great a thought laboring in the breasts of men as now. It almost seems as if what was aforetime spoken fabulously and hieroglyphically was now spoken plainly, the doctrine, namely, of the indwelling Creator in man." American culture subsumed much of Emerson’s power into the broader, pragmatic vision of individualism and expansionism. And the man who was once held the seer of a revolution in human self-recovery was reduced to a beloved idealist. This course re-awakens us to Emerson's great wisdom – helping us to an original relation to the universe, not reliant on the revelations and traditions of earlier generations – and harnessing the power of the man’s vision as inspiration for our own.

Estimated average course time for completion of this course: 3 weeks