Beauty, which the knower appreciates and a lover admires,
is worshipped by the mystic. It is useless to try to put
into words what beauty is, but if anything can explain it,
it is the other word for beauty and that is harmony. It
is the harmonious combination of colors, the harmonious
grouping of lines, and the harmonious blending of
the objects of nature that suggest to us the idea of beauty.
In order to be beautiful an object must be harmonious, for
in point of fact, harmony is beauty. If there is anything
in the world that makes man unconscious of himself, in other
words that makes him lose his self-consciousness, if there
is anything that makes man humble, that makes him surrender
willingly, it is beauty. Beauty is something that conquers
without a sword, that holds without hands, that is more
tender then the petals of a flower and stronger then anything
in the world. The Prophet has said, 'God is Beauty and He
loves what is beautiful.'
Beauty can be divided into three aspects. The first one
is beauty of the object world, of objects. This aspect of
beauty is to be seen in nature. What attracts man unconsciously
to the beauty of nature is the harmony which it expresses.
The sea, the mountains, the rivers, and the blue sky, the
rising sun and the setting sun, the crescent and the full
moon, they all seem to blend together so that a divine vision
is produced that begins to speak to the soul. That is why
the beauty of nature is uplifting. For the mystics, the
prophets, and the sages this was a means of rising to that
pitch where they could feel God. Then there was no longer
a question of their belief in God, for they felt God in
the beauty of nature.
The other is the objective beauty which is art, the creation
of man. This beauty appeals to one because it is a production,
an imitation which the soul admires. Very often those details
which one cannot see clearly in nature are noticeable in
art. Thus art is sometimes the finishing of beauty which
is expressed in nature. An image drawn by an artist can
be more beautiful, for the reason that the artist has finished
what nature had left unfinished. But who is working in the
artist? The Creator Himself; what the Creator had left undone,
He has finished through the artist. Therefore creations
of art are also uplifting. It is most inspiring when a person
listens to the song of birds, yet a song sung or composed
by a human being can be even more uplifting, for man has
completed that beauty, it was is mission to complete it.
It is for this that the world was created, that man might
finish in his own way that which was not yet finished in
nature, so as to make beauty complete.
The second aspect of beauty is personal beauty, the beauty
of the living being, whether in form and feature, in thought
and imagination, in merit and qualifications, or in virtue
and higher qualities. What is goodness? Beauty. What is
right and wrong? That which is beautiful is right, that
which lacks beauty is wrong. Is there then no such thing
as what the religious people call sin and virtue? That which
is beautiful is virtue, and that which lacks beauty is a
sin. Are these not two opposite poles? They are when you
look at them as opposite poles. When we look at the two
ends of a line we see that there are two ends, but when
we look at the center of the line we see that it is one
line. These opposite poles appear to us as two only when
we look at the two ends. When the carpet on the floor is
not laid down as it should be then we say it is wrong, but
there is no rule as to how it should be laid, it is only
a sense we have of recognizing beauty. This sense is disturbed
by seeing that the carpet is not laid straight, and so what
is wrong is the lack of beauty.
The third aspect of beauty is the beauty of God, which
means beauty in its perfection. In order to see this beauty
one must develop spirituality, so that this beauty may manifest
to one's view. All that seems good and beautiful one can
imagine in perfection as far as one's imagination reaches,
calling it the beauty of God. For beauty is only manifest
to our view in its limitation, it is in God alone that we
see beauty in its perfection. There is no object of which
we can say that it is perfectly beautiful, nor is there
anyone except in our ideal that we can attribute all beauty.
We can make something as beautiful as possible but in reality
all beauty belongs to the One and Only, and that is God.
There are two ways of discovering beauty. One way is
to find it in the distribution of all things and beings.
What one person lacks another has got, what one tree lacks
the other tree has, what the river lacks the sea has, what
the desert lacks is to be found in the forest, what the
earth lacks is to be found in the sky. Therefore, when we
take beauty as a whole, we begin to get a glimpse of what
it is. Beauty is never absent but when we take a part of
it and look at only that, we shall certainly see some lack
of beauty. Those who see beauty cut up in divisions, in
sections, become critical. They are in pursuit of beauty,
but they do not find it, they find a little in one person
and a lack of it in another. Even when they find a little
beauty in one person, they still find something lacking
too. When we compare this with all the perfection of beauty,
then the lack of beauty manifests much more to us then the
beauty itself. Naturally therefore man becomes critical,
and this tendency makes him blind to himself.
The other way of seeing divine beauty is to close one's
eyes for a moment to the dense aspect of beauty in order
to see the inner beauty. For instance the one who rises
above the beauty of form begins to see the beauty of thought,
the one who rises above the beauty of thought begins to
feel the beauty of feeling, of sentiment, which is greater
still; and the one who rises even above sentiment and sees
the spiritual aspect of beauty, sees a beauty which is still
greater. There is no end to the realization of the inner
beauty. The inner beauty is much greater when compared with
outer beauty, yet it does not make a person turn away from
the outer beauty. It only makes him appreciate it more than
others do.
Once an ascetic thinker was taken to a variety show in
New York, where there were all sorts of dances and acts
and different amusements, the one who took him there was
eager to find out what his opinion about it was and said
to him, 'This must disgust you, a contemplative person,
to come and see this nonsense going on the stage.' He replied,
'No, never. How can it be disgusting? Is it not my Krishna
who is playing there?' It is those who have touched the
inner beauty who are capable of appreciating beauty in all
forms. It is not only that they appreciate it, they admire
and worship it. If worship is given to anything or anyone
it is given to the God who is hidden in the form of beauty.
The poems of the Sufis of Persia and elsewhere, such
as Hafiz and Jami, Rumi and Fariduddin Attar, are
not only philosophical statements, but they are written
from beginning to end in admiration of beauty. If one were
to dive deep into their every verse, one would find that
each one was equal to a hundred books full of philosophy.
Why? Because their souls have been moved to dance at the
sight of beauty. What they have expressed in their words
is living, burning, full of beauty. It penetrates the one
who can feel it, who can admire it. Their poetry is their
prayer. It might seem that it is sung to beauty, but to
whom is it sung? Their song is to God.
checked 10-Dec-2005
