The Philosophy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This article is a part of a series on my three literary mentors: Karen Blixen, J.R.R. Tolkien and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

The series could be said to follow Kierkegaard´s three stages on the way to becoming a true self: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. Each of these “stages on life’s way” represents competing views on life and as such potentially conflicts with one another. In my interpretation Karen Blixen belongs to the aesthetic stage. Tolkien and Saint-Exupéry belong to the ethical and religious stage, though this doesn´t mean that aesthetics not is a part of their work. It certainly is. After all: their works are of a high literary quality, and the concept of beauty is quite central. 

Meditation is a perception where you are melting into a unified wholeness

To meditate is about seeing the whole thing, everything as a whole; that is to say: where you in self-forgetful openness are allowing the thing to fill you out.

Meditation is a presence of something, which is not hidden.

It is a presence of something evidently, something the individual has a clear understanding of.

It is a presence of something straightforward, a presence in naturalness.

It is a perception where you so to speak become drawn into the thing, and are melting into a unified wholeness, which contains middle, fullness and light.

Usually this happens in a short glimpse, inconspicuous; what you often describe as intuitive cognition.

Suddenly you understand something. There is no causal explanation for it.