The Spiritual Journey
Walden is, above all, the account of Thoreau's own exploration of his capabilities and his search for spiritual understanding. Thoreau recounts his personal quest to demonstrate to his readers the possibility of surmounting the obstacles that materialistic society places in the path of the individual. He does not — cannot — spell out for the reader the spiritual truth that lies at the end of the journey. He focuses on the search itself and the compelling need to make it. Walden chronicles spiritual growth, but the progress of this growth is not linear. It has peaks and valleys, periods of latency as well as of inspired perception.
In "Economy," Thoreau explains his purpose in going to live at the pond. He distinguishes between the outer man — the ephemeral physical being that "is soon ploughed into the soil for compost," and the inner man. He points out the forces that dull and subjugate the inner man, materialism and constant labor in particular. He recognizes the pervasive malaise that results from society's suppression of what we might be — the "stereotyped but unconscious despair . . . concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind." In "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," he advises self-improvement, the cultivation of our intellectual and spiritual needs:
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake . . . by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
The ultimate goal of the author's experiment at Walden is not to prove the economic advantage of living simply, but rather to nurture understanding of self and of the universe.
