2. Whitman 1 Introduction
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2.4 Other PerspectivesApart from Bucke, Burroughs, Carpenter, and a number of other contemporaries who saw the spiritual and prophetic nature of Leaves, most Western scholars to this date have considered only the literary and aesthetic aspects of it. The varying fortunes of Leaves have been determined by such scholars and critics, with modern biographers either ignoring the mystic dimension of Whitman and his work, or downright hostile to it, in the typical modern fashion of many critics in the arts. In a recent volume called The Neglected Walt Whitman: Vital Texts, the author Sam Abrams claims to supply texts either left out in later editions of Leaves, or unpublished work altogether. He says of the neglected texts: Some of these are absolutely crucial (and are so recognised by the overwhelming consensus of contemporary critics) for comprehending the radicality, the complexity and the sheer artistry of Whitman's poetic achievement. Other are equally crucial for illuminating the great sexual mystery of Whitman's biography, and, even more importantly for throwing light on the tangled relationship between the "real" Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and the immortal persona he created in Leaves of Grass —"Walt Whitman, a kosmos." (page 2) This passage shows clearly the main concerns of contemporary criticism for Whitman: his artistry, his sexuality, and to demonstrate that Leaves represents Whitman's persona and not his reality. The evidence from Bucke, Burroughs, Carpenter, and many others that his persona in Leaves and his reality were one and the same thing is incomprehensible to modern literary criticism, and this shortcoming is one of the reasons for examining Whitman so closely from the perspective of Pure Consciousness Mysticism. This is not to deny however that Whitman's artistry is superb and deserves praise and study in itself, and also that it adds immeasurably to his message. Many of the greatest mystics, both living and dead, have little literary gift, but where it does coincide with knowledge we are left with something priceless. Dorothy Mercer was unusual amongst more recent Western scholars in taking an interest in the comparisons between Whitman and Oriental thought, submitting in 1933 a PhD thesis "Leaves of Grass and the Bhagavad Gita". This remains unpublished, but there exists a series of articles by her in the journal Vedanta and the West, published by the Vedanta Society of Los Angeles in the middle to late forties. In one of them she observed that a number of passages in Leaves suggested that Whitman believed in reincarnation,40 and commented that though this bears resemblance to Vedic thought, he does not share some of its attitude to suffering. Mercer's work is illuminative, though, as V.K.Chari (introduced below) has commented, she probably over-emphasises the evolutionary aspect of Leaves, perhaps influenced in this by Bucke. Romain Rolland's work, published in the late 1920's, was also sympathetic to Whitman. Rolland charted Vivekananda's role in the establishment of Vedanta in the West, in the USA in particular, and recognised the American Transcendentalists (Emerson and Thoreau) as important figures in the introduction of Hindu thought into the US. For Whitman however he reserves an unconditional salute as the equal of anything Hindu, at the same time lamenting that Vivekananda did not praise him enough (beyond calling him the 'American Sannyasin')41. Rolland calls Whitman the 'dead giant', 'whose shade was a thousand times warmer than such pale reflections of the Sun of Being seen through their cold methodist window panes. He stood before Vivekananda and held out his great hand to him. … How was it that he did not take it?' This was meant metaphorically, as Whitman had died in the year previous to Vivekananda's arrival in the States. In my own experience great teachers are anyway disinclined to recognise each other or meet each other (with notable exceptions of course); Rajneesh, while recognising Krishnamurti, explained to those of his followers who urged a meeting between them that it would accomplish nothing — they would either sit in silence in mutual recognition of the infinite and eternal in each other, or they would disagree on every single point of pedagogy. (I would add that as such great teachers are so rare it is a waste to put them in the same room, even for a day.) Rolland said of Whitman's religious thought that it 'has come least into the limelight — and at the same time is the kernel [of his poetry].' He regretted also that beyond his immediate disciples Whitman was not recognised in the States: But this is true of all real Precursors. And it does not make them any the less the true representatives of their people that their people ignore them: in them is liberated out of due time the profound energies hidden and compressed within the human masses: they announce them; sooner or later they come to light. The genius of Whitman was the index of the hidden soul sleeping — (she is not yet wide awake) — in the depth of his people of the United States.42 Let us look now at some scholars with an Indian background and see how they have assessed Leaves of Grass. In his preface to Maha Yogi: Walt Whitman - New Light on Yoga, published in 1978, O.K.Nambiar comments on Hindu reactions to Whitman: It is a curious fact that the Hindu mind has shown an instant capacity for responsive incandescence when brought into contact with Whitman's works. I remember an occasion when I read out passages from Leaves Of Grass and translated them for the benefit of a Brahmin pundit. The pundit's eyes lighted up with a flash of recognition, and he exclaimed from time to time — 'He is a realised soul,' 'that is the cream of the Vedanta,' 'those are the signs of Bhava Samadhi' — a joyous recognition of the familiar Upanishadic landmarks all along the route. I know also a few Hindu professors of American Literature who have cheap jibes ready when they talk of Whitman — "homosexual," "egotist," "cataloguer," etc., all of which reveal how little they have tried to know him.43 (It is also unlikely that Gandhi would have responded with incandescence to Leaves, despite his extensive reading of the Hindu scriptures.) As another example of the Indian response to Whitman, it is interesting to note that Asit Chandmal ends his introduction to his photo-essay on Krishnamurti with passages from 'Song of Myself'44 As a contemporary academic Nambiar is unusually receptive to Whitman (or perhaps only so to Western thinking), and makes many interesting connections and comparisons with other mystics of various tradition, though mainly Indian. He is able to describe various contemporaries of Whitman, such as Bucke and Horace Traubel, as Whitman's disciples, and him their guru, without any of the embarrassment or distaste that a Western academic would show. Here is a passage concerning Traubel: An interesting fact about Horace Traubel may be mentioned here. Whitman was Traubel's Guru. Traubel had served him devotedly during the last fifteen years of Whitman's life during his illness. Traubel had his first samadhi experience at the age of thirty one, followed by two successive experiences at two year intervals. The last one, a particularly overwhelming experience, happened when he was crossing the ferry, leaning over the railing of the boat. He then "lost this world for another" and saw revealed for a few minutes "things hitherto withheld from him". "The physical body went through the experience of a disappearance in spiritual light."…"I was one with God, Love, the Universe, at face to face with myself." He was sensible of particular mental and moral disturbances and readjustments, … "an indissoluble unity of the several energies of my being in one force". He stood so profoundly lost in this blissful state that a deckhand who knew him had to tap him on the shoulder to bring him back to normal consciousness. There was such a heavenly look in his face that the deckhand exclaimed: "You look wonderfully well and happy tonight, Mr. Traubel." He continued in a state of ecstacy for full twentyfour hour before he met Walt Whitman. The first words that Walt addressed to him when he sallied into his room reassured him: "Horace," he said, "you have the look of great happiness in your face tonight. Have you had a run of good luck?" Traubel explained in a few words that he had indeed a run of good luck though not perhaps the good luck he had in mind for him at the moment. Walt put his hand on Traubel's shoulder and looked deep into his eyes and said one of the strangest things he ever said, "I knew it would come to you." Traubel said, "I have been wondering all day if I am not crazy." Walt laughed gravely. "No, sane. Now at last you are sane." The Guru knew instinctively that the disciple had made the grade.45 Where Nambiar's analysis parts company with PCM however, is in the ingrained Hindu attitude to the material world as 'illusion' or in some way lesser than the spiritual. This is shown clearly in the following passage: Whitman speaks to us from two levels. He has got himself misunderstood, sometimes, because he commutes between the two levels without warning us. He shifts his standpoint. There are two Whitmans. One is the 'son of Manhattan'. The other is 'a Kosmos'. The former, somewhat unreasonably calls himself 'one of the roughs', just for the sake of being all inclusive. The latter during his cosmic moments believes himself, to be an "incredible God". The two have to be carefully separated lest their voices should mix. The Manhattan voice speaks of the earthly show: it talks about politics, wars, presidents, the Broadway pageant and the human scene. The 'incredible God' swiftly leaps over them and speaks of the soul, the cosmic plan, divine purpose and of the 'light untellable'. Since the son of Manhattan is intermittently aware that he is a Kosmos, there are two voices heard in Leaves, and we are apt to treat them alike. However, sensitive readers can note a difference. When he speaks from the 'Manhattan level' he appears to be speaking out to us in a 'yawp heard over the roofs of the earth.' The reader is obliged to shift his view-point back and forth between the immanent and the transcendent levels of consciousness to follow the transition of thought. This movement on the part of the reader is necessary.46 Despite the embraciveness of the Gita (remember that Krishna urges us to love also the man who eats a dog), and the tradition of non-dualism, and the Tantric traditions, there is a very Hindu fastidiousness shown here that wants to separate the Manhattan voice from the cosmic voice; that wishes to make a distinction between the immanent and the transcendent, and thinks Whitman 'unreasonable' for calling himself one of the roughs. It is true that Whitman, in using language, does distinguish between his soul and the rest, but he always does so in the context of explaining their equality and inter-manifestatory nature (i.e. that one begets the other). Perhaps Whitman sensed this aspect of Hinduism when he told Carpenter that he did not expect more from that source. We have other reasons for finding Nambiar's directive to separate the two voices or levels unsatisfactory, detailed further in the section below on Douglas Harding. Nambiar also makes explicit references to the occult in Whitman, mainly in terms of the theory of Kundalini, the snake-energy supposedly resident in the spine. PCM does not reject any of this, remember, but finds it mainly irrelevant; Whitman says explicitly 'The supernatural of no account'. However Nambiar's book is a very interesting and informative study of Whitman with sections on Ramakrishna, R.M.Bucke, and Rumi, amongst others. V.K.Chari, another Indian scholar, first wrote Whitman in the Light of Vedantic Mysticism as his PhD thesis, and subsequently published it in 1964. The 1976 edition47 has an introduction by Gay Wilson Allen who praised Chari's work as a thorough study of Whitman in the context of Indian thought. Allen recounts how Thoreau had asked Whitman if "he had read any of the great works of India", to which Whitman is supposed to have replied "No, tell me about them". Whitman claims however to have read "the ancient Hindu poems" before writing Leaves of Grass, and Nambiar's Maha Yogi: Walt Whitman, shows in the frontispiece a photograph of a page from Whitman's version of the Gita with a handwritten commentary. Chari gives a good introduction to the literary controversies surrounding Leaves, and also compares it to Thus Spoke Zarathustra which we shall look at in the next chapter. Chari prefers the Upanishads to the Gita for comparisons with Leaves of Grass, and also gives a detailed exposition with reference to the philosophies of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. This is generally a useful book about Whitman, but tends to use Western philosophy as the link between Whitman and Vedantic mysticism, partly on the grounds the Whitman was enthusiastic about Hegel. PCM as a critique avoids the speculative nature of the philosopher's discourse, at least as a starting point, so from this point of view Chari's work is not as relevant as Nambiar's. In Whitman and Bharati: A Comparative Study V.Sachitanandan shows how the Tamil poet Bharati was influenced by Whitman in the introduction of free verse into his tradition48. Sachitanandan also investigates the affinity of the two poets in terms of Vedantic mysticism, in particular the Advaita (non-dual) school of Vedanta, but on the whole the study is more oriented towards a literary analysis than a mystical one.
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