"Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is a quote from Emerson's "Self-Reliance". He was telling us to
be your own person a nonconformist.
"These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow
faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere
is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.
Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the
better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the
liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is
conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities
and creators, but names and customs."
"Who so would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would
gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness,
but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but
the integrity of your own mind."
Wayne Dyer in his book "Wisdom of the Ages" says:
"In this brief excerpt, Emerson speaks to the necessity of being a
nonconformist to be fully alive, and of resisting enculturation.
Society demands conformity at the expense of individual liberty, he
asserts-it demands that you fit in or be an outcast. Emerson insists
on the integrity of the individual mind, maintaining that it is
sacred. Now, remember that Emerson was also a minister, who is
informing us that the mind is what is sacred: not the rules, laws,
and societal mores, but your mind. Further on in "Self-Reliance"
Emerson declares,
"No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature."
This profoundly courageous statement is from a fearless man who knew
that divinity and sacredness are not in the institutions of the
church but in the minds of individuals. Our conduct makes us divine
creatures, not our memberships. How we use our minds as free-thinking
people is what makes us sacred, not how well we cite the laws to
protect our malice or vanity."
"The essence is knowing that you are already complete, already whole,
and that nothing external to yourself in the physical world can make
you any more complete."
I also like what he had to say about religion:
"The leaders of the church misconstrued the teachings of the Great
religious leaders and attempted to teach comformity by using fear of
retribution as a weapon. Thus a man behaves morally not because he
believes it to be appropriate for him, but because God wants him to
behave that way. If in doubt, consult the commandments rather than
yourself and what you believe. Behave because someone has told you to
and because you will be punished if you don't, not because you know
it to be right behavior for you. Organized religion appeals to your
approval-seeking needs. It may produce the same behavior that you
would have chosen, but you haven't chosen it freely.
Using yourself as a guide and not needing the approval of an outside
force is the most religious experience you can have. It is a
veritable religion of it self in which an individual determines his
own behavior based upon his own conscience and the laws of his
culture that work for him, Rather than because someone has dictated
how we should behave. A careful look at Jesus Christ will reveal an
extremely self-actualized person, an individual who preached self-
reliance, and was not afraid to incur disapproval. Yet many of his
followers have twisted his teachings into a catechism of fear and
self hate."
Will
