George W Russell (AE)
[April 10, 1867--July 17, 1935]
TOB 3.38pm  (glen)

Irish poet, novelist, painter, economist, journalist, and editor; gave up painting in his twenties to concentrate on writing; close friend of Yeats who involved him in Irish nationalism movement and interested him in mystical theosophy which became an important element in much of his poetry; first volume of poetry Homeward: Songs of the Way published in 1894; edited Irish Homestead from 1906 to 1923 and its successor Irish Statesman from 1923 to 1930, periodicals which became the primary forum for his ideas on economic and political reform in Ireland; published two books on economic reform, Cooperation and Nationality in 1912 and The National Being in 1916; wrote two novels, The Interpreters (1922) and The Avatars (1933); his Collected Poems published 1913, with a second edition in 1926; in 1932, published a prose commentary on his own poetry, Song and Its Fountains.

---

“That is perfect. 
This is perfect. 
Perfect comes from perfect.
Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect.
May peace and peace and peace be everywhere.”
– Eesha-upanishad

W.B. Yeats tells us that A.E. was 40 years quoting the Upanishads to him saying “he expressed in his ceaseless vague preoccupation with the East a need and curiosity of our times” 

Yeats with Shree Purohit Swami translated the Ten Principle Upanishads and gave the reason for doing it was due to the lack of an understandable text in English. He describes them as the “the oldest philosophical compositions of the world, compositions, not writings, for they were sung long before they were written down.”

  The Upanishad (literally means ‘at the feet of’)are the wisdom or doctrine attached to the VEDAS .  The quoted prayer is taken from the first chapter: