In the Nick of Time: Thoreau's "Present" Experiment as a Colloquy of East and West

Abstract

Taking recourse to my own nature, I create again and again this whole multitude of beings which are helpless under control of my nature.Bhagavad Gita 9.8 And therefore when [mind] turns to itself in thought, a trinity is formed in which a word too can be perceived. It is formed of course out of the very act of thought, with the will joining the two together. It is here then more than anywhere that we should recognize the image we are looking for. Augustine, Trinity 382By relating itself to its own self, and by willing to be itself, the self is grounded transparently in the Power which constituted it. Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death 182 I CircumscriptionsA s most readers of Walden immediately sense, the book's second chapter, "Where I Lived and What I Lived For," marks an important juncture in Thoreau's account of his life at Walden Pond. It is at this point that the narrator announces his move to Walden on a full-time basis-an event which took place, he says, "by accident" on "Independence Day," that is, the fourth of July, 1845. However accidental, the date was of course propitious, since moving to Walden represented a RELIGION and the ARTS 9:3-4 (2005): 235-257.