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<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Spiritual beauty has a contagious power. Beauty is the joyous offering of Nature.</span>
<ref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/arts#p13 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/arts#p13]</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Beauty is a great power. Beauty does not get its full power except when it is surrendered to the Divine.</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/beauty#p8 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/beauty#p8</ref>
<div style="color:#000000;">It is the soul in us which turns always towards Truth, Good and Beauty, because it is by these things that it itself grows in stature; the rest, their opposites, are a necessary part of experience, but have to be outgrown in the spiritual increase of the being.</div>
<ref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-origin-and-remedy-of-falsehood-error-wrong-and-evil#p14]</ref>
<div style="color:#000000;">Love, Joy and Beauty are the fundamental determinates of the Divine Delight of Existence, and we can see at once that these are of the very stuff and nature of that Delight: they are not alien impositions on the being of the Absolute or creations supported by it but outside it; they are truths of its being, native to its consciousness, powers of its force of existence. </div>
<ref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/indeterminates-cosmic-determinations-and-the-indeterminable#p17 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/indeterminates-cosmic-determinations-and-the-indeterminable#p17]</ref>
<div style="color:#000000;">All Beauty in the world is there the beauty of the Beloved, and all forms of beauty have to stand under the light of that eternal Beauty and submit themselves to the sublimating and transfiguring power of the unveiled Divine Perfection. </div>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p16 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p16</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Beauty is not sufficient in itself, it wants to become divine. Pure sense of beauty can be acquired only through a great purification.</span>
<ref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/beauty#p13 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/beauty#p13]</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 28 July 1929)</span>
<ref>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-july-1929#p15 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-july-1929#p15]</ref>
== Different Ways of Perceiving Beauty ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">He means that it [seeking for beauty] is </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''instinctive'''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">, that it isn't rational, it doesn't depend on the domain of reason, it is something instinctive.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''We have a sense of beauty and love beauty without even knowing why, and there are things which give the sense of beauty without our knowing why, without our reasoning. It is instinctive. He says that this is the infrarational stage of the aesthetic '''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">sense. It is absolutely obvious that a child, who sees a pretty flower and has the feeling of beauty he does not know why, would never be able to tell you that it's because the form is balanced and the colours are lovely; he cannot explain it. Therefore it is not rational, it is altogether instinctive, it is an attraction, an impulse drawing one towards something, a harmony one feels, without being able to define it. But most often it is like that. It is rarely that one is able to say, "This thing is beautiful because of that, because of this," and to give a whole lecture on the beauty of something. Usually, one simply feels that it is beautiful; if later one wonders, "Why did I feel it is beautiful?" then, by making an effort with one's intelligence one may succeed in understanding it; but at the beginning one is not pre-occupied with the why, one feels that it is beautiful, and that's all, one is satisfied with that.</span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For example, you enter a historical building, and suddenly you are seized by the sense of a great beauty; how do you explain it? If someone asks you about it you would say, "Well, I feel that it is beautiful." But if an architect enters a building and has the same feeling that it is beautiful, he will immediately tell you, "It's because the lines meet harmoniously, the mass of the volumes is in harmony, the entire structure follows certain laws of beauty, order and rhythm", and he will explain them to you. But that's because he is an architect, and yet you could have felt the beauty as much as he without being able to explain it. Well, your feeling for beauty is what Sri Aurobindo calls infrarational, and his feeling for beauty is what Sri Aurobindo calls rational, because he can explain with his reason why he finds it beautiful.(The Mother, 1 June 1955)</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/1-june-1955#p21 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07</1-june-1955#p21]ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''higher principle of beauty is a suprarational principle'''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">and therefore reason understands nothing at all about it. If you want to judge art by reason you are sure to say foolish things.</span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 25 May 1955)</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/25-may-1955#p37 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07</25-may-1955#p37]ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">In the free infinity of the self-delight of Sachchidananda there is a play of the divine Child, a rāsa līlā of the infinite Lover and its mystic soul-symbols repeat themselves in characters of beauty and movements and harmonies of delight in a timeless forever.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/gnosis-and-ananda#p18 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23</gnosis-and-ananda#p18]ref>
== The All-Beautiful Absolute ==
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The master and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He is the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed and unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all beings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light and the Guide, the All-Beautiful and All-Blissful, the Beloved and the Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever.'''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.</span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">... that there is nothing but That—something we cannot name, cannot define, cannot describe, but something we can feel and can more and more become. A Something that is </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''more perfect than all the perfections, more beautiful than all the beauties'''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">, more marvellous than all the marvels, so that even the totality of all that exists cannot express it. And there is nothing but That. And it is not a Something floating in nothingness: there is nothing but That.</span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 8 October 1966)</span>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/8-october-1966#p7 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/8-october-1966#p7]
== Beauty in Love ==