Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Showing up

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:
"It is easy in this world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he, who in the midst of a crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

This morning I thought:

It is easy in this world to lose ourselves in the things and events that press upon us each moment of the day. It is easy in solitude to know and experience personal transcendence. But true freedom is, in the midst of a crowd, the perfect sweetness of sustained transcendence.