Transcendentalism

A detailed Summary of Transcendentalism

When an average person seeks happiness, most often they search in the wrong place: "If only I could have that I would be happy." For ages, man has been seeking happiness from outside, not within. People have the misconception that material things and materialistic goals will bring them ultimate happiness, but in truth those only bring transient happiness. True and lasting happiness can be reached from within when one realizes the ultimate truth. This ultimate truth, the main focus of transcendentalism, can be reached through self-reliance, nature, and oversoul, the main principals of the philosophy. By meditation, by communing with nature, through work and art, man could transcend his senses and attain an understanding of beauty, goodness, and truth.

With the realization of the ultimate truth comes lasting happiness. This is the kind of happiness that every person searches for and works toward but often gets thrown off course by the evil influences of society. This is where self-reliance comes in. In the path to realizing the truth and attaining true happiness, one first has to realize that it is within, and cannot be attained from outside the self (or soul). With this knowledge they must go

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space.

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere. O my soul."

"...water is not just H2O but also an element of the soul- fluid, deep, changing, tidal, cleansing, amniotic, nurturing, and threatening. To know water intimately is to know something about ourselves and to appreciate its presence as a means for increasing the life of the soul" (Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life 8).

Back in the process of self-reliance, one realizes that "individuality in universality is the plan of creation" (Swami Vivekananda 121). In other words, one realizes that everything in this universe is connected with each other and that the underlying principal is the same for everything. This is expressed in the quote "One in all and all in one" (Bhagavad Gita). That is, one consciousness is pervading over all matter in this universe. For example, many individual drops of water (individual people, animals, plants, objects . . . etc.) come together to create the vast ocean (universe). This ocean of consciousness is the transcendental idea of the oversoul. Whitman speaks of the oversoul in a part of the poem "A Noiseless Patient Spider":

through a process of introspection. When going through this introspective path, one develops his or her intuitive mind, and begins to believe in (have faith in) it. When one really begins to trust in their intuitive abilities they are able to become self-reliant. That is, they are able to form their own ideas and opinions based on their new found intuition, and not conform to societal norm. When self-reliant, one is really believing in the self and has that enormous c

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