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<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/27/art-beauty-and-ananda#p7</ref></u></span>
= <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Why is it Important to Have Aesthetic Sense?</span> =
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000;">But the way the world is organized, people without aesthetic needs go back to a very primitive life—which is wrong. We need a place where life... where the very setting of life would be, not an individual thing, but a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000;">beauty that would be like the surroundings natural to a certain degree of development.</span>
<span div style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">But the way the world is organized, people without aesthetic needs go back to a very primitive life—which is wrong. We need a place where life... where the very setting of life would be(The Mother, not an individual thing, but a </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''beauty that would be like the surroundings natural to a certain degree of development.'''25 March 1970)</spandiv>
<div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother, 25 March 1970)</div> <div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/11/march-25-1970#p49</ref></u></div>
 <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The aesthetic downfall is perhaps due to other causes, a disappointed idealism in its recoil generating its opposite, a dry and cynical intellectualism which refuses to be duped by the ideal, the romantic or the emotional or anything that is higher than the reason walking by the light of the senses. The Asuras of the past were after all often rather big beings; the trouble about the present ones is that they are not really Asuras, but beings of the lower vital world, violent, brutal and ignoble, but above all narrow-minded, ignorant and obscure. But this kind of cynical narrow intellectualism that is rampant now, does not last—it prepares its own end by increasing dryness—men begin to feel the need of new springs of life.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/science-and-yoga#p43</ref></u></span>
<div style="color:#000000;">An ordinary consciousness, altogether ordinary, dull like all ordinary consciousness—as soon as it sees something beautiful, whether it be an object or a person, hop! "I want it!" It is deplorable, you know. And into the bargain it doesn't even have the joy of the beauty, because it has the anguish of desire.</div>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/9-february-1955#p7</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">But for one who has more inner sensitivity, appearances are no longer deceptive and he can perceive the ugliness hidden beneath a pretty face and the beauty concealed beneath a mask of ugliness.</span>[http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-297-298#p6 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-297-298#p6]<div style="color:#000000;">You can read sacred books and yet be far away from the Divine; and you can read the most stupid productions and be in touch with the Divine.</div>
<div style="color:#000000;">There is a way of consciousness in union with the Divine in which you can enjoy all you read, as you can all you observe, even the most indifferent books or the most uninteresting things. You can hear poor music, even music from which one would like to run away, and yet you can, not for its outward self but because of what is behind, enjoy it.</div>
<div style="color:#000000;">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.</div><div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother, 28 April 1929)</div>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-april-1929#p18</ref>
 
== Aesthetic Sense & Yoga ==
<div style="color:#000000;">The discipline of Art has at its centre the same principle as the discipline of Yoga. In both the aim is to become more and more conscious; in both you have to learn to see and feel something that is beyond the ordinary vision and feeling, to go within and bring out from there deeper things. Painters have to follow a discipline for the growth of the consciousness of their eyes, which in itself is almost a Yoga. If they are true artists and try to see beyond and use their art for the expression of the inner world, they grow in consciousness by this concentration, which is not other than the consciousness given by Yoga. Why then should not Yogic consciousness be a help to artistic creation? (The Mother, 28 July 1929)<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-july-1929#p7</ref>
<div style="color:#000000;">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>
<div style="color:#000000;">The aesthetic and emotional mind and aesthetic forms are used by Yoga as a support for concentration even in the Yoga of knowledge and are, sublimated, the whole means of the Yoga of love and delight, as life and action, sublimated, are the whole means of the Yoga of works.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-higher-and-the-lower-knowledge#p10</ref></div>
<div style="color:#000000;">Art, poetry, music are not Yoga, not in themselves things spiritual any more than philosophy either is a thing spiritual or science… </div>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Art, poetry, music, as they are in their ordinary functioning, create mental and vital, not spiritual values; but they can be turned to a higher end, and then, like all things that are </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">capable of linking our consciousness to the Divine, they are transmuted and become spiritual and can be admitted as part of a life of Yoga.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-intellect-and-yoga#p26</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Through the development of a new sense of beauty, a thirst for truth and light, through understanding that it is only by widening yourself, illumining yourself, setting yourself ablaze with the ardour for progress, that you can find both integral peace and enduring happiness.</span><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/punishment#p24</ref>
== Aesthetic Sense & The “Converted” Vital ==
<div style="color: #000000;">But this vital is a strange creature. It is a being of passion, enthusiasm and naturally of desire; but, for example, it is quite capable of getting enthusiastic over something beautiful, of admiring, sensing anything greater and nobler than itself. And if really anything very beautiful occurs in the being, if there is a movement having an exceptional value, well, it may get enthusiastic and it is capable of giving itself with complete devotion—with a generosity that is not found, for example, in the mental domain nor in the physical. It has that fullness in action that comes precisely from its capacity to get enthused and throw itself wholly without reserve into what it does. </div>
<div style="color: #000000;">(The Mother, 9 September 1953)</div>
 <div style="color:#000000;">But this vital is a strange creature. It is a being of passion, enthusiasm and naturally of desire; but, for example, it is quite capable of getting enthusiastic over something beautiful, of admiring, sensing anything greater and nobler than itself. And if really anything very beautiful occurs in the being, if there is a movement having an exceptional value, well, it may get enthusiastic and it is capable of giving itself with complete devotion—with a generosity that is not found, for example, in the mental domain nor in the physical. It has that fullness in action that comes precisely from its capacity to get enthused and throw itself wholly without reserve into what it does. </div><div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother, 9 September 1953)</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/9-september-1953#p19</ref></u></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">
A converted vital is an all-powerful instrument. And sometimes it gets converted by something exceptionally beautiful, morally or materially. When it witnesses, for example, a scene of total self-abnegation, of uncalculating self-giving one—of those things so exceedingly rare but splendidly beautiful—it can be carried away by it, it can be seized by an ambition to do the same thing. It begins by an ambition, it ends with a consecration… And this vital, if you place it in a bad environment, it will imitate the bad environment and do bad things with violence and to an extreme degree. If you place it in the presence of something wonderfully beautiful, generous, great, noble, divine, it can be carried away with that also, forget everything else and give itself wholly. </span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 9 September 1953)</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/9-september-1953#p20</ref></u></span>
 <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">When the adverse forces are dealt with in the right way, all that is ugly and false disappears to leave place only for what is true and beautiful.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/adverse-forces#p28</ref></u></span> 
== 3.3 Aesthetic Sense in Education ==
<div style="color: #000000;">A young child should aspire for beauty, not for the sake of pleasing others or winning their admiration, but for the love of beauty itself; for beauty is the ideal which all physical life must realise. Every human being has the possibility of establishing harmony among the different parts of his body and in the various movements of the body in action. Every human body that undergoes a rational method of culture from the very beginning of its existence can realise its own harmony and thus become fit to manifest beauty. &nbsp;</div>
 <div style="color:#000000;">A young child should aspire for beauty, not for the sake of pleasing others or winning their admiration, but for the love of beauty itself; for beauty is the ideal which all physical life must realise. Every human being has the possibility of establishing harmony among the different parts of his body and in the various movements of the body in action. Every human body that undergoes a rational method of culture from the very beginning of its existence can realise its own harmony and thus become fit to manifest beauty. &nbsp;</div> <div style="color:#0066cc;"><u>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/physical-education#p12</ref></u></div>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To this general education of the senses and their functioning there will be added, as early as possible, the cultivation of discrimination and of the aesthetic sense, the capacity to choose and adopt what is beautiful and harmonious, simple, healthy and pure. As the capacity of understanding grows in the child, he should be taught, in the course of his education, to add artistic taste and refinement to power and precision. He should be shown, led to appreciate, taught to love beautiful, lofty, healthy and noble things, whether in Nature or in human creation. This should be a true aesthetic culture, which will protect him from degrading influences… A methodical and enlightened cultivation of the senses can, little by little, eliminate from the child whatever is by contagion vulgar, commonplace and crude. This education will have very happy effects even on his character. For one who has developed a truly refined taste will, because of this very refinement, feel incapable of acting in a crude, brutal or vulgar manner. This refinement, if it is sincere, brings to the being a nobility and generosity which will spontaneously find expression in his behaviour and will protect him from many base and perverse movements.</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p11</ref>
== Aesthetic Sense & Ethics ==
<div style== Aesthetic Sense & Ethics =="color: #000000;">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. </div>
<div style="color:#000000;">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. </div> <div style="color:#000000;">(The Mother, 26 December 1956)</div>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/26-december-1956#p23</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">''Can those who have a see of beauty also become cruel?''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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 </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">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.</span>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 17 March 1954)</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/17-march-1954#p34</ref>
 <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">83—Shame has admirable results and both in aesthetics and in morality we could ill spare it; but for all that it is a badge of weakness and the proof of ignorance.</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-81-82-83#p5</ref>
 <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">One must be very much higher on the scale to see that what one does is ugly. One must already have at the core of oneself a kind of foreknowledge of what beauty, nobility, generosity are, to be able to suffer from the fact that one doesn't carry them within oneself.</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p103</ref>
 
== Aesthetic Sense & The Divine ==
 <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The Greeks had a keen and exceptional sense of beauty, of eurythmy, of harmony in forms and things. But at the same time they had an equally keen sense of men's impotence in face of an implacable Fate which none could escape. They were haunted by the inflexibility of this Fate, and even their gods seem to have been subject to it. In their mythology and in their legends, one finds little trace of the divine compassion and grace.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/the-divines-help-to-man#p17</ref></u></span>
<div style="color:#000000;">But supposing you take a real genius—a musician or artist or writer of genius—who has fully mastered his instrument, who can use it to produce works that express the utmost human possibility, if you add to this a spiritual consciousness, the supramental force, then you will have something truly divine.</div>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 24 April, 1957)</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/24-april-1957#p13</ref>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">… </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">if you go deeply enough, you can perceive Sachchidananda, which is the principle of Supreme Beauty. Secondly, you see that everything in the manifested universe is relative, so much so that there is no beauty which may not appear ugly in comparison with a greater beauty, no ugliness which may not appear beautiful in comparison with a yet uglier ugliness.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-19#p3</ref></u></span>
 <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is one of the greatest weapons of the Asura at work when you are taught to shun beauty. It has been the ruin of India. The Divine manifests in the psychic as love, in the mind as knowledge, in the vital as power and in the physical as beauty. If you discard beauty it </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">means that you are depriving the Divine of this manifestation in the material and you hand over that part to the Asura.</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/india#p224</ref>
<div style="color: #000000;">I look at a rose, a thing that contains such a concentration of spontaneous beauty...how can one study sincerely, with attention and care, without being absolutely convinced that the Divine is there? … something we cannot name, cannot define, cannot describe, but something we can feel and can more and more become. A Something that is more perfect than all the perfections, more beautiful than all the beauties, 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.</div>
<div style="color:#000000;">I look at a rose, a thing that contains such a concentration of spontaneous beauty...how can one study sincerely, with attention and care, without being absolutely convinced that the Divine is there? … something we cannot name, cannot define, cannot describe, but something we can feel and can more and more become. A Something that is more perfect than all the perfections, more beautiful than all the beauties, 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.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 8 October 1966)</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/8-october-1966#p7</ref>
<div style="color: #000000;">… the perception and enjoyment of the divine Beauty and Delight which pervade the universe. And I said that as we embrace the whole of life in Yoga, so we accept the entire genuine self-expression of the spirit of life in poetry. We would range up and down the whole realm of poetic creation like free, unattached worshippers of the Divine Beauty and seekers of the divine Delight.</div>
<div style="color:#000000;">… the perception and enjoyment of the divine Beauty and Delight which pervade the universe. And I said that as we embrace the whole of life in Yoga, so we accept the entire genuine self-expression of the spirit of life in poetry. We would range up and down the whole realm of poetic creation like free, unattached worshippers of the Divine Beauty and seekers of the divine Delight.</div> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">(The Mother, 13 July 1943)</span>
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/13-july-1943#p2</ref>
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