Changes

… there is a just and permissible, a quite legitimate human enjoyment of these things, which is, to speak in the language of Indian psychology, predominantly sattwic in its nature. It is an enlightened enjoyment principally by the perceptive, aesthetic and emotive mind, secondarily only by the sensational, nervous and physical being, but all subject to the clear government of the buddhi, to a right reason, a right will, a right reception of the life impacts, a right order, a right feeling of the truth, law, ideal sense, beauty, use of things. The mind gets the pure taste of enjoyment of them, ''rasa'', and rejects whatever is perturbed, troubled and perverse. Into this acceptance of the clear and limpid ''rasa'', the psychic prana has to bring in the full sense of life and the occupying enjoyment by the whole being, ''bhoga'', without which the acceptance and possession by the mind, ''rasa-grahaṇa'', would not be concrete enough, would be too tenuous to satisfy altogether the embodied soul. This contribution is its proper function. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/purification-the-lower-mentality#p3</ref>

Yes, this beauty of soul that is visible in the face, this kind of dignity, this harmony of integral realisation. When the soul becomes visible in the physical, it gives this dignity, this beauty, this majesty, the majesty that comes from one's being the Tabernacle. Then, even things that have no particular beauty put on a sense of eternal beauty, of it the eternal beauty. (The Mother, 1 July 1958) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/july-1958-1#p3</ref>

And if you are not stopped by the appearance, physical or moral or aesthetic, but get behind and are in touch with the Spirit, the Divine Soul in things, you can reach beauty and delight even through what affects the ordinary sense only as something poor, painful or discordant. (The Mother, 28 April 1929) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-april-1929#p18</ref>

To do this yoga, one must have, at least a little, the sense of beauty. If one does not, one misses one of the most important aspects of the physical world. (The Mother, 1 July 1958) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/july-1958-1#p1</ref>

Sometimes, when one sees a generous act, hears of something exceptional, when one witnesses heroism or generosity or greatness of soul, meets someone who shows a special talent or acts in an exceptional and beautiful way, there is a kind of enthusiasm or admiration or gratitude which suddenly awakens in the being and opens the door to a state, a new state of consciousness, a light, a warmth, a joy one did not know before. That too is a way of catching the guiding thread. (The Mother, 26 December 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/26-december-1956#p23</ref>

''Q. Can those who have a see of beauty also become cruel?''  ''A.'' That's a psychological problem. It depends on where their sense of beauty is located. One may have a physical sense of beauty, a vital sense of beauty, a mental sense of beauty. If one has a moral sense of beauty—a sense of moral beauty and nobility—one will never be cruel… But those who were unified, in the sense that they truly lived their art—those, no; they were generous and good. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/17-march-1954#p34</ref>

''A.''It is always the same realisation presented from different angles, expressed through various experiences: the realisation that everything is a manifestation of the Supreme, the Eternal, the Infinite, immutable in his total perfection and in his absolute reality. That is why, by conquering our mind and its ignorant and false perceptions we can, through all things, enter into contact with this Supreme Truth which is also the Supreme Beauty and the Supreme Love, beyond all our mental and vital notions of beauty and ugliness, the good and the bad.  [Based on Aphorism 48—I knew my mind to be conquered when it admired the beauty of the hideous, yet felt perfectly why other men shrank back or hated.]<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-48#p3</ref>

In fact people who work in order to develop their taste, to refine it, are rarely very much attached to food. It is not through attachment to food that they do it. It is for the cultivation of their senses, which is a very different thing. It is like the artist, you know, who trains his eyes to appreciate forms and colours, lines, the composition of things, the harmony found in physical nature; it is not at all through desire that he does this, it is through taste, culture, the development of the sense of sight and the appreciation of beauty. And usually artists who are real artists and love their art and live in the sense of beauty, seeking beauty, are people who don't have many desires. They live in the sense of a growth not only visual, but of the appreciation of beauty. There is a great difference between this and people who live by their impulses and desires. (The Mother, 23 February 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/23-february-1955#p5</ref>

We attain to something of this capacity for variable but universal delight in the aesthetic reception of things as represented by Art and Poetry, so that we enjoy there the Rasa or taste of the sorrowful, the terrible, even the horrible or repellent; and the reason is because we are detached, disinterested, not thinking of ourselves or of self-defence (''jugupsā''), but only of the thing and its essence…

There is but one remedy: that signpost must always be there, a mirror well placed in one's feelings, impulses, all one's sensations. One sees them in this mirror. There are some which are not very beautiful or pleasant to look at; there are others which are beautiful, pleasant, and must be kept. This one does a hundred times a day if necessary. And it is very interesting. One draws a kind of big circle around the psychic mirror and arranges all the elements around it. If there is something that is not all right, it casts a sort of grey shadow upon the mirror: this element must be shifted, organised. It must be spoken to, made to understand, one must come out of that darkness. If you do that, you never get bored. When people are not kind, when one has a cold in the head, when one doesn't know one's lessons, and so on, one begins to look into this mirror. It is very interesting, one sees the canker. "I thought I was sincere!"—not at all. (The Mother, 1 April 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/1-april-1953#p10</ref>

The greatest obstacle to the transformation of one's own character is hypocrisy. If you always keep this in mind when dealing with a child, you can do him a lot of good. Of course, you must not sermonise or lecture him, etc. You should simply make him understand that there is a nobility in the being, a great purity, a great love of beauty, which is so powerful that even the most wicked and criminal people are forced to acknowledge a truly beautiful or heroic or selfless act. (The Mother, 6 January 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/6-january-1951#p28</ref>

You are all, here, youthful matter; you must know how to profit by it—and not for petty, selfish and stupid reasons but for the love of beauty, for the need of harmony. (The Mother, 17 June 1953) <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/17-june-1953#p39,p40</ref>

It is infinitely more difficult to tell a story beautiful from beginning to end than to write a story ending with a sensational event or a catastrophe. Many authors, if they had to write a story which ends happily, beautifully, would not be able to do it—they do not have enough imagination for that. Very few stories have an uplifting ending, almost all end in a failure—for a very simple reason, it is much more easy to fall than to rise. (The Mother, 26 February 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-february-1951#p23</ref>

And if you know how to tell yourself a story in this way, and if it is truly beautiful, truly harmonious, truly powerful and well co-ordinated, this story will be realised in your life. (The Mother, 18 April 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-1956#p56</ref>

When a child is full of enthusiasm, never throw cold water on it, never tell him, "You know, life is not like that!" You should always encourage him, tell him, "Yes, at present things are not always like that, they seem ugly, but behind this there is a beauty that is trying to realise itself. This is what you should love and draw towards you, this is what you should make the object of your dreams, of your ambitions." (The Mother, 31 July 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/31-july-1957#p8</ref>