Fear and sublime- An unique experience that reminded Immanuel Kant, Emerson and Francis Khirupa

 

“Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fear is a natural reaction to something we have not yet seen or understood. When we encounter the unknown, looking at it as a direct threat is a fundamental instinct of the primal human sleeping within us. In the empty spaces of our knowledge, we settle our anxieties and imaginations, creating terrifying monsters out of simple mysteries. Ignorance creates a crippling dread. As a result, we imprison ourselves within familiar, safe, and suffocating boundaries.

To overcome fear, one must engage in a relentless pursuit of clarity and wisdom. When the light of awareness shines into the dark corners of uncertainty, many things that appeared threatening vanish on their own. Understanding transforms terrifying ignorance into a landscape filled with profound opportunity and growth. As our understanding of the world and ourselves deepens, fear’s grip begins to loosen. In its place, enduring peace, wisdom, and complete awareness take root.

During the last summer vacation, I visited Tioman Island in Malaysia. Featuring a landscape dense with rainforests, Tioman encompasses several small islets. Underneath the water surrounding some of these islands, coral reefs lie spread across the seabed. Water-adventure enthusiasts travel there year-round to indulge in sports like scuba diving and snorkeling.

Terrified of water as I was, I summoned the courage to try snorkeling.

Even with all the safety gear—a life vest to keep me afloat and protective equipment—I did not step into the water right away, sitting on the beach for a long time instead. A line by Francis Kiruba echoed in my mind: “Should the sea be given a name, or is 'sea' enough?”

All around me, broken coral reefs lay scattered on the sand like animal bones. Before me, the ocean spread out like a vast curtain. As far as the eye could see, sunlight poured over the water like a diamond glare. The surface of the sea looked as if carved from a solid block of green sugar candy. The crests of the waves gleamed in the sunlight. I sat in the water under the blinding sun as the waves surged around me. A large wave crashed over me, soaking me completely.

As successive waves hit me, I felt the heavy weight of fear slowly begin to lift.

With the blue sky stretching above the shore like the inverted sea itself, it occurred to me that rather than surrendering to a paralyzing dread, we must examine whether our fears are truly justified or meaningful, probing their underlying roots through logic.

The root of my fear of water, I realized, was the urge to keep life as much under our control as possible. Fear is nothing more than the realization that we have no control over what is happening or what is about to happen. We always prefer our feet planted firmly on solid ground, measuring every step and treading with caution. But the ocean offers no such certainty or stability.

Once I understood the root cause of my fear, I gained the confidence to face it effortlessly. I realized that the way to keep from drowning was not to fight or control the water, but to go with its flow and move along with it.

Now the sun did not feel as harsh. I decided to leave the fear in my hands behind on the shore and step into the water.

Wearing my protective gear, I stepped into the shallow waters near the coast. Taking a slow breath, I submerged myself.

The sight I witnessed beneath the surface was pure transcendence; the emotion that swept over me could be called ecstasy or supreme joy. Speaking of a sublime experience, Emerson notes: “I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration; I am glad to the brink of fear.” I experienced almost the exact same feeling.

Underneath the sea, glowing like a massive emerald rock, a completely different world awaited—a magical world made of colors. Thousands of fish darted back and forth in schools. Adorned with countless hues and patterns—spots, stripes, and grids—fish big and small swam between the coral reefs. Decorated like brides in deep shades of purple, yellow, and red, the corals swayed gently underwater.

At first, I struggled because I didn't know how to regulate my breath, unable to stay underwater for more than a couple of seconds. Soon, however, I picked up the technique of breathing through the snorkel. I began swimming deeper into the sea.

Once I got used to breathing underwater, staying submerged was no longer difficult. Around me, thousands of fish moved in unison like a single living thought.

A fish colored like a peacock’s neck brushed past my cheek. Another passed through the curve of my shoulder and swam past the back of my neck. I cupped both hands under the water without closing them completely. Tiny, ivory-colored fish nudged my palms with their snouts. A somewhat broad fish, looking as though rose-pink dye had been dissolved over its gray body, swam right up to my face and looked me dead in the eye.

A school of fish, glowing in a shade of red akin to henna-stained palms, swam past like flames swaying in the wind.

Baby sharks roamed here and there fearlessly, surrounded by swarms of other fish circling like sea shells. The fish wandered restlessly—left and right, forward and backward—a bustling movement that didn't slacken even for a moment.

Floating underwater among the fish brought immense euphoria. Weightless, I forgot myself and floated like a leaf fallen into the water, swept along by the current. The ocean felt like a grand aquarium, and I, a fish swimming joyfully within it. Had I given in to fear and stayed out of the water, what a monumental experience I would have missed!

In his Critique of Judgment and later in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Immanuel Kant describes "The Sublime." The sublime is an aesthetic experience rooted in sensory perception.

Unforgettable moments in life often evoke deep wonder and fear within us. It is these experiences that Kant calls "The Sublime"—an awe, but an awe mingled with fear. Sublime experiences simultaneously terrify and enchant us, leaving us powerless before a force far greater than ourselves. We call these grand experiences or great visions.

Kant defines Beauty as something that evokes harmony, pleasure, and serenity, whereas The Sublime is an experience of awe and grandiosity. Beauty is found in anything that captivates our senses, whether art or nature. It is measured by scale, delicacy, and charm—an aesthetic experience that allows the viewer to reflect and admire without fear. On the flip side, aesthetic experiences that induce fear and discomfort simultaneously are sublime experiences. Kant considers the sublime a "negative pleasure."

It is often triggered by vast, powerful phenomena like towering mountains or raging seas. Kant divides sublime experiences into two categories:

1. The Mathematical Sublime: An experience that feels immeasurable to our senses. Viewing a star-studded sky stretching endlessly on a cloudless night serves as an example. During the mathematical sublime, the observer faces something so immense that it cannot be fully processed by visual perception all at once. One cannot take in the entirety of the Grand Canyon in a single glance the way one looks at a chair. Because it cannot be grasped in a single view, it appears infinite and sublime to the senses.

2. The Dynamical Sublime: Experiences such as witnessing a volcanic eruption or a swirling river torrent. Here, a natural event possessing seemingly boundless power—like a hurricane or tsunami—is perceived by our senses. Even the feeling experienced when listening to a crash of thunder tearing through the sky and shaking the earth can be considered the dynamical sublime.

Comparing Kant's mathematical sublime to my fear of water: standing before an ocean and looking at that infinite expanse of water stretching to the horizon, our eyes cannot measure it in a single moment; it appears boundless.

This overwhelming experience prompts our mind's capacity for Reason to reflect on Infinity. Immediately, our reason desires sensory perception to match the endless grandeur it imagines.

However, human eyes and senses cannot capture the full dimension of that vast abyss at a single point. No matter how wide we look, our senses can only catch a fraction of the sea (even though the ocean is ultimately bounded by the Earth). Consequently, that immeasurable expanse induces a sense of discomfort and fear within us.

Kant concludes that this very fear of magnitude grants us a blissful experience called the sublime. Where the senses fail, the extraordinary power of our rational mind to contemplate infinity emerges. Even an infinite space that the eye cannot see can be conceived by the human mind. Only an infinite mental capacity (reason) can comprehend something infinite in scale.

Thus, Kant argues that rather than the grand nature unfolding before our eyes, it is actually our Rational Mind, capable of thinking about infinity, that makes the experience sublime.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Experience explores the elusive, fragmented nature of human existence. The world does not always reveal itself to us naturally; Emerson states that our temporary moods act like colored lenses, painting the world with their own hues and shaping its appearance and meaning.

Asserting that personal experience is a far more powerful path to learning about oneself and the world than external factors like literature or history, Emerson calls life a series of unpredictable, unplannable "surprises."

He writes that we "thrive by casualties" and notes that human power displays itself most effectively not through planned or forced actions, but in ways that are "oblique and spontaneous."

Beginning the essay with the metaphor of an endless staircase, Emerson writes: "Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We awake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight." This metaphor of an infinite expanse beyond human comprehension can be compared to Kant's mathematical sublime.

The vast body of water that once stretched infinitely before me and terrified me turned into a catalyst for discovering this sublime inner power after I saw the world beneath the waves.

I felt the fear and stress that had consumed me begin to dissolve. According to Kant, the sublime refers to an infinite, slightly threatening experience. Yet nothing that is part of nature is truly infinite; Kant argues that the only thing infinite and sublime in the universe is our rational mind. He concludes that we consider natural phenomena sublime because they make us realize how powerful and infinite our own reason is.

Refuting this, Emerson states that "it is the Fall of Man to determine where he touches the world." In that moment, he argues, we view the world through our inner self, through the subject-lenses of our past experiences. He says we slip through nature like ghosts, and that a "ghostly element" or an uncrossable sea exists between the observer and the object observed.

The sublime moments of our lives make us feel as though we are close to a new and magnificent realm. These are the moments that reveal The August Magnificence. Attaining such a sublime experience means sensing a deep connection with nature or a divine power.

This is why we cannot fully accept Kant's theory, which reduces the sublime strictly to human intellect. The truth is that we consider something sublime precisely when it eludes our intellect and lies beyond our cognitive reach.

Nevertheless, there is no denying that Kant's theory serves as a wonderful starting point for understanding why nature's grand and powerful occurrences leave us in awe and ecstasy.

A short distance away, my son was swimming. To understand life on land, he needs a multitude of rules and routines

Yet, unlike me, he found solace in the uncontrollable nature and chaotic flow of the water. I watched his feet dance beneath the surface. A child who struggled to walk firmly on land was leaping with excitement and confidence in the water.

In that moment, a newfound hope washed over me that he, too, would one day get used to the rules of the land. Fears about the sea and about life receded, replaced by fresh epiphanies, and I stepped ashore filled with the ecstasy of having experienced the sublime.

Quite unexpectedly, two or three baby dolphins leaped right before my eyes. With an excited shout, my son swam after them.

Hearing his call, a few other children, including my daughter, joined him, and the dolphin calves began playing tag with them in the water. Watching these two different aspects of nature—the children and the dolphins—play in harmony renewed my faith in life. It made me feel like a part of this grand nature, a single drop within it.

The fish grazing in the water,

The mountains meditating on the land,

The corals sleeping in the deep,

The rivers enchanting the sea—

Together, they call out to the infant crawling in the morning.

The child, yet to learn how to play,

Simply gazes at its mother's face again and again.

And in her eyes, all the oceans merge.

— J. Francis Kiruba

We always live on the slippery surfaces of life. The art of living lies in learning to glide skillfully across those slippery surfaces.

This experience urged me to realize that each of us must embrace our own life journey, seeking out the subtle truths and quiet expressions of the extraordinary hidden within everyday experiences.

Amidst the illusions and impermanence of daily existence, what we can do is cultivate faith in life by fully experiencing the present moment. When I realized that despite our conflicting thoughts and confusions, living with trust in our personal dreams and the vital force of eternity is true magnificence, my eyes were filled with the sea.

— B. Revathi