Topical Index
Art
7.
96.
Beauty
96.
Blasphemy
21.
Brevets & Missions
5.
8.
11.
18.
22.
88.
105.
116.
130.
142.
207.
257.
Celestial Administration
12.
19.
60.
69.
79.
91.
92.
137.
138.
165.
198.
209.
Change
41.
45.
Children
37.
63.
196.
Circumspection
212.
Communion
1.
62.
178.
199.
200.
201.
206.
Comportment
40.
44.
97.
129.
134.
142.
241.
244.
249.
251.
Divine Instruction
23.
25.
35.
78.
95.
97.
122.
140.
194.
Dogma
25.
91.
163.
Etheric Vacuum
66.
Evil & Ignorance
5.
11.
23.
36.
47.
89.
97.
98.
144.
159.
215.
222.
236.
237.
238.
249.
Experience
8.
9.
27.
86.
152.
186.
193.
253.
Faith
78.
210.
211.
Fear
27.
31.
111.
241.
Force : Physical 128, 169. Cosmic 151. Moral 80.
Giving
70.
Growth
148.
Humility
155.
Impatience
226.
Justice
231.
Knowledge & Wisdom
37.
86.
122.
163.
189.
232.
256.
Leadership
81.
133.
215.
Light
25.
30.
109.
Love
43.
46.
50.
57.
58.
147.
148.
217.
218.
Matter
109.
152.
Mediums
75.
76.
Numerology
85.
Omens, Symbols & Miracles
35.
55.
73.
74.
96.
126.
146.
168.
195.
203.
Pact, Plan & Program
14.
17.
78.
142.
178.
180.
215.
233.
257.
Parables: Figs 104, Five Sons 156, Gardener 163, Mustard Seed 156, Ravens 160, Roses 101, Small Mishiefs 175, Two Bounties 182.
Pattern
149.
Patience
9.
22.
84.
Patriotism
15.
Peace
230.
234.
246.
Personal Choice
14.
16.
29.
93.
153.
157.
168.
246.
253.
Prayer
32.
131.
241.
Promise
10.
16.
24.
28.
42.
117.
166.
192.
205.
248.
Prophets & Prophecy
65.
66.
67.
83.
172.
Reincarnation
6.
12.
25.
31.
72.
76.
81.
152.
Rewards, Recompense & Money
39.
40.
82.
87.
143.
144.
201.
247.
250.
Sacrifice
34.
Self Command
93.
147.
Science & Inovation
14.
166.
Second Coming
25.
26.
29.
36.
72.
81.
106.
114.
120.
146.
181.
219.
Service
2.
33.
69.
107.
114.
156.
177.
Space
65.
Spirit
20.
Suffering
13.
176.
Thought
57.
66.
148.
Time
41.
45.
Tolerence
27.
Tranquility
38.
Vibration
67.
Victory
223.
War
18.
47.
230.
Others
3.
4.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
56.
59.
61.
64.
68.
71.
77.
90.
92.
94.
99.
100.
102.
103.
108.
110.
112.
113.
115.
118.
119.
121.
123.
124.
125.
127.
132.
135.
136.
139.
141.
145.
150.
154.
158.
161.
162.
164.
167.
170.
171.
172.
173.
174.
179.
183.
184.
185.
187.
188.
190.
191.
197.
198.
202.
204.
208.
209.
213.
214.
216.
220.
221.
224.
225.
227.
228.
229.
235.
239.
240.
242.
243.
245.
252.
254.
255.
|
Chapter 96:
What Is Beauty?
<< Previous | Home | Next >>
1. HEAR MY words concerning Beauty.
2. When ye do possess a thing of beauty, it is strangely aligned with your spiritual natures, but beauty I tell you is not wholly spiritual.
3. Beauty is an esoteric valuation.
4. Things of beauty are things of perception.
5. Beauty is a perceptual valuation aligning it with forces that are introactive in each case.
6. Beauty is perceptual valuation, I say, in that it requireth knowledge for its counterpart.
7. Knowledge without beauty is implausible; beauty without knowledge is implausible and impossible as well.
8. Beauty is a product of knowledge, wedded to wisdom through human perception.
9. Behold ye have knowledge of a subject, that is definite; it increaseth to the point where ye make deductions apparent from the factors involved, and a curious growth proceedeth therefrom that men term Wisdom.
10. But wisdom is not what men generally think;
11. It is not the accumulation of facts, or even principles, but the wholesome recognition of values that are essence; this recognition of values in turn containeth elements that, once given birth, sublimate into a high, high form of spiritual intelligence as far above wisdom as wisdom transcendeth knowledge.
12. This super-intelligence is not exactly beauty but partaketh of it in essence.
13. Behold there are cases where certain men see things and other men see not; those who see express those things by symbols.
14. A symbol is the thing they see with their eyes, or behold through their senses, made into a pattern for other men's perceptions.
15. The making of the thing is Art.
16. The transition of the symbol is the concretion of art.
17. When ye do make a drawing of a beautiful object, or paint or mold any form of esthetic presentation, this thing ye do: ye but pattern a symbol that rendereth concrete a form of sublimated wisdom that was first Perception but which hath passed into realms of sublime Intuition.
18. Beauty as such is purely relative: it hath its essence in externalizations: it is an elusive factor for definition in that it partaketh of those values which cometh from a rendition of the abnormal into the supernatural or supernormal;
19. It is of the essence of perception flowering into exaltation that the perception is accurate, usable, and functioning.
20. When men make a beautiful object, they surpass their own wisdom, as wisdom is considered.
21. Beauty is the cognition of beauty, symbolized, not necessarily the thing which the symbol visualizes.
22. Ye do have it that a thing of beauty is a lasting joy. I tell you it is so because it performeth a symbolization that is forever recurrent in the soul of the beholder.
23. Beauty is the transcendent qualification for human endeavoring: it is a Divine Ideal in process of revelation through perception; but beauty is more. . . .
24. Beauty is the Divine Ideal in process of revealment through spiritual perception.
25. Or put it in this way: Beauty is the sense of attraction which your spiritual natures have for divine revelation on whatever plane of perception ye do elect to make contact.
26. The beauty of the African negress seemeth real to her lover, verily as beautiful as the sister of white flesh to him whose skin is fair;
27. Are not the same motives at work behind both in substance, and is not that substance greater than the ideal which wrought the idea?
28. That substance is the application of the idea to the ideal: it is the giving forth of the thought concept into sublimated form of conception greater than the original intent.
29. Beauty, ye do say, must have appreciation. What meaneth such speech? I say beauty hath a quality within itself for attracting, appealing to, or drawing out, something within each spirit that is part of the Divine Harmony making for order in the universe.
30. Beauty is every man's concept of idealism based on the God Essence whereof he is created.
31. Beauty is born of consciousness, therefore it cannot be objective.
32. Whatever is born of consciousness is spiritual in value, consciousness being a spiritual attribute; even as there are varying degrees of consciousness, so are there gradations of beauty perception.
33. But I tell you with a vehemence, whatever is beautiful is in degree harmonious.
34. Beauty is the transcendent qualification in human endeavor that maketh consciousness to realize what the eternal meaneth in manifestation.
35. Whatever is beautiful is facile; that which is ugly is ever immobile; beauty, I tell you, is always action in that it is movement toward an appreciation of a logos.
36. When beauty entereth into a given subject it is always on a plane of understanding of the Eternal's reasons why the thing was created; whatever partaketh of beauty partaketh of the essential reason for which it was created;
37. The incrustation of the meaning is the appeal of the beauty.
38. Is my reasoning abstruse? . . . I say the interpretation of the beauty is what the Father meant when He said, Let there be Light, in the broader sense.
39. Thousands of men have made beautiful objects which thousands of others have cast in the mire or trodden under foot, in that the meaning was too abstruse, whereas those who did the damage would be quite content with plainer interpretations of lesser significance.
40. Keep this thought clear: Beauty is your coadjutor with Nature; it assisteth you to perform your own spiritual functions, deriving from Nature those benefactions which are the Divine Ideal in process of revealment.
41. I say unto you, beloved, that ye are far on the highroad of understanding beauty when ye concede that man is the instrument through which beauty is interpreted.
42. Man, I say, is more: he is the solvent in which beauty worketh pure miracles.
43. Beauty is your concept of the Divine Ideal in all which ye perceive, ideal in the sense of crystallized intent;
44. Beauty is God expressing Himself in matter, by and to your spiritual consciousness.
45. But what of ugliness? . . .
46. Ugliness is inharmony in completion of perception.
47. Strictly speaking, there is no ugliness: all things seen are matters of contemplation, and the proper contemplation is a degree of planes, not as men think a degree of attainment.
48. Whatever is, is beautiful to someone; whatever is, is ugly to someone; so beauty and ugliness are not essences, beloved, but ever degrees of personal contemplation.
49. I beseech that ye hear me further:
50. Whenever beauty entereth into a subject, I say it is at the behest of a creative consciousness;
51. That is to say, creation hath its purpose in all that it createth; that purpose is the beauty of the thing when properly interpreted, or interpreted according to the meaning of its creator.
52. But creation may have a plan or purpose not always apparent, yet the thing may still be beautiful in that it concerneth itself with certain manifestations of cosmic harmonies that by their natures are interpretable.
53. They transcend the dictates of reason, intellect, and sense perception, creating a product that symbolizes their graduation from all three.
54. Ye do speak of a beautiful object, such as a beautiful sunset, a beautiful horse, a beautiful woman;
55. Is it not true that in any of these is a subliminal concept of your own graduation from the very essences which wrought them into being in your consciousness? ye but read into them a concept that cometh from more than wisdom and is compounded of equal parts of appreciation of their grace, a knowledge of their appropriateness, and a transcendence of their function. . . .
56. Ye do take them as they are, but ye do appreciate them with a finesse of valuation that cometh verily from spiritual erudition, and when ye have said that, ye have named Beauty, not a valuation in itself but a sense of the valuation.
57. Beauty partaketh of these three: knowledge, perception, and function, but it goeth further and addeth unto these a spiritual formula of transcendent knowledge wedded to cosmic worth.
58. I have told you that beauty is of the essence of wisdom but not its counterpart; verily I say that it is made up of more than wisdom, verily more than sublimated wisdom;
59. Beauty is the fact of being able to perceive the cosmic intent behind the idea!
60. Beauty is therefore as diverse as created ideas are diverse; it is as profuse as created ideas are profuse.
61. But beauty interpreteth for each soul his own gradations into the divine.
62. I say the lesson is not easy, but he who hath ears to hear, let him hear: he who hath a soul to encompass it, let him envelop it and know its fraught meaning. . . . .
<< Previous | Home | Next >>
|