Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Meditations of the Perplexed Yogi

thanks toyin.

i think sublime in the kantean sense means something that exceeds what we can put into language/discourse/rational thought

the ordinary sense is wonderful. but this larger sense is closer to the biblical "terrible," "wondrous", "fearful" etc, and really evokes such moments as moses on the mountain, hidden in the cleft, as god passes by before him.

i always found african religious thought to be much much closer to our jewish biblical thought than any other approach.

as for islam, you are right. my first book was Faces of Islam in African Literature, where i evoke the sufi thought in camara laye and cheikh hamidou kane and tayib saleh. the second book of essays, the Marabout and the Muse, was an attempt to complete the regional converage of islam.

i know it disturbed cornelius, and perhaps others, when i do not take the position that blasphemy is a crime that merits punishment like that which the ppor student deborah had to suffer. no one likes blasphemy, especially in these days of islamophobia, which we have to find ways to oppose.

 i am very very sensible to the insults against and demeaning of islam in the west, and build my political values around that struggle. i wish we could all be on the same page.

but it is one thing to say that this is regarded as an unacceptable act in islam; another to condone killing the offender. the line really must be clear.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2022 10:39 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Meditations of the Perplexed Yogi

 

An unusual kind of sublimity. Would like to read that speech.

Thanks Ken.

I still find it strange referring to you by your first name, since Nigerians don't do that with people far ahead of them, recalling as I do that paper of yours I might have mentioned more than once, "A Sufi Interpretation of Le Regarde de Roi," perhaps my first encounter with a discussion of Islamic mysticism  in African literature, in the basement of the Ugbowo library of the University of Benin, at the beginning of my academic career.

You've moved on from that long ago orientation, including the collection Islam in African Literature, if I recall the title correctly, with a superb essay on Mahmoud Dib, Turareg poet, that being possibly the correct name of the poet,  but it's that Islamic mystical strand I will always associate with you.

Thanks

Toyin

On Thu, May 19, 2022, 15:28 Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:

beautiful reflection, but the antithesis of kantian sublime which transcends the beauty and humane spirit of the buddha. when 9/11 occurred, spivak came to our university and described the event as sublime, in the kantian sense

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2022 6:52 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Meditations of the Perplexed Yogi

 

For years, I have lived the ascetic life.

Seated at the entrance to this cave, I see the valley below and the town within it.

In the far distance after this natural space and the human habitation nestled within it, is a mountain range.

Beyond the mountain range, towering to the farthest height of sight,  is the sky.

Beyond the sky is the sun.

The sun is setting,gloriously red in it's circular splendour,  seeming to rest in a gap between the mountains.

My fellow humans. Myself. The sun. The rhythm of it's rising and setting. Our rhythms of being and becoming.

What is beyond this?

" One thing do I preach brother, now and always, suffering, and deliverance from suffering" the Buddha declared, describing desire as the root of suffering.

Without desire, without the tension between ideal and fulfillment, without the pain of indequacy of the world, what would life be worth?

I withdraw from the quest for freedom from pain.I withdraw from the rejection of desire.

"As long as space abides, as long as the world abides, so long shall I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world," declares Santideva in his Boddhicaryavatakara.

Sublime.

But, which suffering? Of physical health? Of pain in the dissatisfaction with reality?

How meaningful would a perfect  world be?

"We must be still and still moving, into another intensity, for a further union, a deeper communion " T. S. Eliot.

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