‘The Over Soul’

     
The School of Practical Philosophy has another Emerson Study Day in store next month. The School delivers a curriculum and these extra-curricular occasions that comprise an ideal complement to Masonic studies, and I commend them to you. (I may miss Grand Masters Day at Tappan for this.) From the publicity:

The Over Soul

School of Practical Philosophy

Sunday, October 15 at 8:30 a.m.

12 East 79th Street

Manhattan

$30 per person, click here

Come explore the spiritual and intellectual legacy of America’s great philosopher and teacher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Drawing on the wisdom of Plato and the Eastern traditions, Emerson knew from direct experience and observation that Unity is the true reality. He spoke of “one mind common to all” and “one soul which animates all things.” His affirmation of Unity was total, and he encouraged people to discover this for themselves.

We shall study selected passages from his most transcendental pronouncement. The Over Soul is his description of the Supreme Self, the Param Atman, the Divinity within. This essay offers wise and practical advice on how to remain open to the Unity by living in “an attitude of reception,” receiving and reveling in “the disclosures of the Soul.”

From the essay:

“Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the eternal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One. And this deep power, in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.”

All are welcome. No prior study of Emerson is required. Sign in at 8:30. The program will begin at 9 a.m. Registration fee covers a light brunch and the printed reading materials. Tutor: Barbara Solowey.


Click here to read the essay at hand.