THE KANTIAN SUBLIME

 

Immanuel Kant, My third favorite German Philosopher after Hegel and Marx (Ye itni ghatiya baat hai waise, aur piche likh lete, Ye kya hierarchy hai, din bhar baith ke yahi sab sochte ho, ki Kaun kitni rank pe hai? Khair!) 

So, Kant gave this concept of Sublime, which is quite useful for us for understanding Psychoanalysis, Spirituality, Beyond science and scientific method stuff and most easily art. 

Kantian Sublime refers to the attributes of the content of the formless object. I know you did not get anything. It is usually unreasonable, unacknowledged sense of meaning that is attached to every object. For example, let me read to a Sher of Zeb Gauri to make it clear, 

बुझते सूरज ने लिया फिर से संभाला कैसा ।
उड़ती चिड़िया के परों पर है उजाला कैसा ।

किसने सहरा में मेरे वास्ते रखी है ये छाँव,
धूप रोके है मेरा चाहने वाला कैसा ।

Now, tell we, let's not get into the meaning so fast. You felt something. The sounds of words, the sounds of the rhythm, the imagery that you get if you can already deconstruct, it will be difficult to point out where exactly comes the beauty, the aesthetic of poetry in there? Is it the words? Is it the meaning? Is it the musicality? Or is it the image that forms inside our heads after reading these four lines? 

This is the feeling of sublime. You can only witness it subjectively. You cannot objectively give a logical consistency for it. Does the image of a man walking in a desert, thanking God for the piece of shadow of a tree, that he finds? Is this feeling sublime? No, because it is expressible. Not this feeling, But the more abstract feeling which you experience for a split second, after which you made the image of this poetry in your mind, you analyzed it. 

The feeling before analysis, the feeling before reason, the feeling, which is primal, a product of raw passion, a raw instinct, is sublime. 

If you have understood it, It would not be difficult for you to understand spirituality, effects of meditation and how it works, Can the feeling of sublime be felt at will? Adhyatmika people will say yes. But very few are able to feel it. Why? Because they rarely meditate. 

I just wonder with a chuckle that how many people use the phrase "This is like meditation to me!"

Without even meditating for 5 minutes in life. 

I mean, how do you know what meditation feels like? 

Kitaab mein padh liya? Film dekh li? Baba se sunn liya? 

Ajeeb Jaahil hain!

Khair...

So, The Kantian sublime helps us to understand more the understandable by definition and unknowable by construct.