Transcendentalism

 This blog is a response to the thinking activity assigned by Vaidehi Hariyani ma'am. In this blog, we are supposed to write about what is transcendentalism and any other regional literature/theory that is the same as American Transcendentalism.

What is Transcendentalism:

"an idealistic philosophical and social movement that developed in New England around 1836 in reaction to rationalism. Influenced by romanticism, Platonism, and Kantian philosophy, it taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity, and its members held progressive views on feminism and communal living. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were central figures."

Transcendentalism, a 19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. German transcendentalism (especially as it was refracted by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle), Platonism and Neoplatonism, the Indian and Chinese scriptures, and the writings of such mystics as Emanuel Swedenborg and Jakob Böhme were sources to which the New England Transcendentalists turned in their search for a liberating philosophy.

In a simple sense, Transcendentalism means: To go above or beyond the limits of the senses and everyday experiences. we can go beyond depending on our intuition rather than on logic.

What is Beauty according to you?

Nowadays we think that beauty means qualities that please our aesthetic senses, especially sight, something that is perfect, which we are predicting over someone's physique. But what I think is that beauty can be found anywhere you just need the sight to identify it. The definition of beauty can differ from person to person. Like in traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is described as one of appreciating the beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature. (Source: nilayrathod.blogspot.com)

we can find a similar theory to Transcendentalism and that is Buddhism. Buddhism is one of the world's largest religions and originated 2,500 years ago in India. Buddhists believe that human life is one of suffering and that meditation, spiritual and physical labour and good behaviour are the ways to achieve enlightenment or nirvana. Buddhists believe in focusing on their inner self.