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SELF ACTUALIZATION

IDENTIFICATION OF THE VOICE OF THE SELF: Self-actualization of subaltern in Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” and Meena Kandasamy’s “Advaita: The Ultimate Question”. According to Immanuel Kant, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s understandings without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s mind without another’s guidance”. This paper attempts to identify the enlightened voices which have emerged from the subjugating ideologies through self-actualization. Self-actualization is a term that has been used in various psychological theories often in slightly different ways and is introduced by Kurt Goldstein for the motive to realize one’s full potential. The concept was brought most fully to prominence in Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. In this theory Maslow presents the need of self actualization as the highest and final need of a human being which includes need for realizing one’s own maximum potential and the need for self-fulfillment. This attainment of self actualization can be explicitly viewed in the poem “Still I Rise”, written by Maya Angelou and in the poem “Advaita: The Ultimate Question” written by Meena Kandasamy. They dared to emerge from self-imposed nonage. By realizing their inner strength and full potential these voices attain equality with others by breaking all the subaltern bondages. In a broader realm the term ‘Dalit’ which has the meaning ‘ground down’ or .depressed’ within Indian scenario had a paradigm shift and travelled beyond borders to include other groups throughout the world that are relegated to a secondary position by the privileged classes. Thus the anguish of African-American writer and Indian Dalit becomes similar. Maya Angelou and Meena Kandasamy share a common agony that has a same meaning. Especially being women they are double marginalized. And for these oppressed, Dalit literature had become a weapon of words to delineate their consciousness, experience as well as their anguish. Contrary to other Dalit writers, who expresses their anger through violent words or portrays their humiliating experiences, Maya Angelou in her poem “Still I Rise” and Meena Kandasamy in her poem “Advaita: The Ultimate Question” accepts their identity and by realizing their potential projects it through their words and challenges the world. Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” which is included in her collection with the same name deliberately proclaims this self-actualization of the labeled subaltern. She realizes the self and dares to claim her space through her poem. According to Neubauer, “Angelou’s poems “are inspired and spoken by a confident voice of strength that recognizes its own power and will no longer pushed into passivity”. Shedding away the culture of silence that was practiced by the woman across the world, Angelou creates a world of voice that has identified the self. Through this voice she formulates her own space and challenges oppressor’s attitude towards her. Her own lines from the poem, “Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?” itself declares her self-actualized state. The poem demolishes the conviction about the subjugated as inferior or downtrodden. Maya Angelou tries to exert and extols herself from all the oppressions and rises from her own ashes like phoenix. Similarly Meena Kandasamy in her poem “Advaita: The Ultimate Question” identifies and equates her ‘Atman’ to ‘Brahma’. In Sanskrit, ‘Advaita’ means ‘not two’. Advaita Vendata tradition propagates non-dualism that is non-difference of ‘Atman’ and ‘Brahma’, self and god. Meena Kandasamy clutches this ideology to propound her state of self-actualization. By realizing the true potential of the self she attains liberation in her soul as well as in the world that considers her as inferior. She ennoble herself through this poem by ripping and annihilating the tag that recluse her to a world of depression and subjugation. By comparing individual self to Brahmin god she expands herself to a cosmic nature. She challenges the oppressors by asking: “So I Untouchable Outcaste Am God. Will You Ever Agree?” Meena Kandasamy demands her space by accepting her identity as an outcaste. Equanimity exhibited in her lines itself projects her inner harmony which she had attained through this self-actualization. Quest for spiritual enlightenment is an integral part of self-actualization. This enlightenment had been achieved by Meena Kandasamy that dares her to ask the ultimate question: “Can My Untouchable Atman And Your Brahmin Atman Ever Be One ?” By creating her own space and by liberating herself from the confined identity, she suggests unification between her untouchable self and Brahmin self, Coherence between oppressors and the oppressed. By suggesting this she is inviting the so called upper class and lower class to shed their identity to become one. So the Brahmin becomes untouchable and the untouchables Brahmin. Or in other words she views herself and her caste with a quality that the upper class is viewed. Both Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” and Meena Kandasamy’s “Advaita: The Ultimate Question” addresses an unseen oppressor. This unseen oppressor may not be a single class or caste but the whole world that categorize them to a lower identity whether it is to theorize or to detach their literature and identity to a field of academic. What they demand is equality. As they view their self in its actualized state and believe in their elevated position of identity they suggest the whole world along with the reader to attain self-actualization to acquiesce their parity with others. Through their poem they exert a voice that shatters all the bondages of subaltern suppressions. The peak of self-actualization they attained at frequent period, which is marked by feelings of ecstasy, harmony, deep meaning, and feeling at one with the universe, they pour forth it as poetry. And break the entire cocoon that hinders them from attaining the vast sky. Strength and confidence in understanding the true self makes them to emerge from the self imposed nonage. They attain liberation by asserting themselves through their voices and living the life in its actualized state. BIBLIOGRAPHY “Kant. What Is Enlightenment” kant. What Is Enlightenment. N.p.,n.d. Web. 23 oct. 2014. N K Arjun. “Maslows Hierarchy of Motives” Psychological Bases of Eduction. 15th ed. N.p.: Yuga Publication, 2012. N.pag. Print. POEM: STILL I RISE BY MAYA ANGELOU. “POEM: STILL I RISE BY MAYA ANGELOU.” Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. “Advaita: The Ultimate Question.” Meena Kandasamys Poetry. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. “Self-actualization.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Nov.2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2014. B.Keralavarma. “The Dalit Movement” Cross Currents. 1st ed. N.p.: Kairali Offset, 2011. N. pag. Print.