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Read Summary of '''[[Beauty Summary|Beauty]]'''
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= What is Beauty? =
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Beauty is a great powerthe aesthetic instinct of man, and the good is his ethical instinct, and these two things are very important in human education and growth.. Beauty does not get its full power except when it is surrendered to the Divine. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1507/beauty25-may-1955#p8p39</ref>
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Beauty is a great power. Beauty does not get its full power except when it is surrendered to the Divine. <div style="colorref>http: #000000;">There is this beauty, this dignity of soul—a thing about which I am very sensitive//incarnateword. It is a thing that moves me and evokes in me a great respect always./cwm/15/beauty#p8</divref>
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<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</div> <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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/indeterminates-cosmic-determinations-and-the-indeterminable#p17</ref></div> <div style="text-align: center;">♦</div> <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. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p16</ref></div> <div style="text-align: center;">♦</div>
Beauty is not sufficient in itself, it wants to become divine. Pure sense of beauty can be acquired only through a great purification.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/beauty#p13</ref>
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There are people who are just like beautiful animals—all their movements are harmonious, their energies are spent harmoniously, their uncalculating efforts call in energies all the time and they are always happy; but sometimes they have no thoughts in their head, sometimes they have no feelings in their heart, they live an altogether animalish life. I have known people like that: beautiful animals. They were handsome, their gestures were harmonious, their forces quite balanced and they spent without reckoning and received without measure. They were in harmony with the material universal forces and they lived in joy. They could not perhaps have told you that they were happy—joy with them was so spontaneous that it was natural—and they would have been still less able to tell you why, for their intelligence was not very developed. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/13-january-align: center;">♦1951#p15</divref>
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Perhaps not the highest sense of beauty, but in the vital one finds a complete sense of beauty and harmony. The beauty which is fundamental, profound, universal, constant belongs only to the psychic, but the sense of the beauty of form, of appearance, of colour, the educated, refined vital fully possesses. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/1-align: center;">♦march-1951#p30</divref>
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== Beauty in Psychic Art ==
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True art is intended to express the beautiful, but in close intimacy with the universal movement. The plants greatest nations and the most cultured races have always considered art as a part of life and made it subservient to life. Art was like that in Japan in its best moments; it was like that in all the best moments in the history of art. But most artists are very psychiclike parasites growing on the margin of life; they do not seem to know that art should be the expression of the Divine in life and through life. In everything, everywhere, but they can express it only by silence in all relations truth must be brought out in its all-embracing rhythm and every movement of life should be an expression of beautyand harmony. FormSkill is not art, colour, scent + something else which talent is not art. Art is indefinable [constitute a living harmony and beauty that must be expressed in all the movements of existence. This manifestation of beauty and harmony is part of flowers]the Divine realisation upon earth, perhaps even its greatest part.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/03/28/science-andjuly-yoga1929#p78p14</ref>
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== Beauty Why is it Important for Progress in Vital Yoga? ==
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<div style="color: #000000;">...the joy and happiness and satisfaction of beauty that comes from the perception of the Divine everywhere. It plunges the nature inward towards its meeting with the immanent Divine in the heart's secret centre and, while that call is there, no reproach of egoism, no mere outward summons of altruism or duty or philanthropy or service will deceive or divert it from its sacred longing and its obedience to the attraction of the Divinity within it.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-i#p23</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
The beginning of the heart's attraction to the Divine may be impersonal, the touch of an impersonal joy in something universal or transcendent that has revealed itself directly or indirectly to our emotional or our aesthetic being or to our capacity of spiritual felicity. That which we thus grow aware of is the Ananda Brahman, the bliss existence. There is an adoration of an impersonal Delight and Beauty, of a pure and an infinite perfection to which we can give no name or form, a moved attraction of the soul to some ideal and infinite Presence, Power, existence in the world or beyond it, which in some way becomes psychologically or spiritually sensible to us and then more and more intimate and real. That is the call, the touch of the bliss existence upon us. Then to have always the joy and nearness of its presence, to know what it is, so as to satisfy the intellect and the intuitional mind of its constant reality, to put our passive and, so far as we can manage it, our active, our inner immortal and even our outer mortal being into perfect harmony with it, grow into a necessity of our living. And to open ourselves to it is what we feel to be the one true happiness, to live into it the sole real perfection. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-align: center;">♦ananda-brahman#p2</divref>
<div style="color:#000000;">The aesthetic mind is perfected in proportion as it detaches itself from all its cruder pleasures and from outward conventional canons of the aesthetic reason and discovers a self-existent self and spirit of pure and infinite Beauty and Delight which gives its own light and joy to the material of the aesthesis.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/purification-intelligence-and-will#p10</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
... if one deeply feels the beauty of Nature and communes with her, that can help in widening the consciousness. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/9-align: center;">♦november-1969#p4</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">... if one deeply feels the beauty of Nature and communes with her, that can help in widening the consciousness. (The Mother, 9 November 1969)<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/9-november-1969#p4</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
Only those who have developed a little artistic taste, have travelled much and seen many things have widened their consciousness and they are no longer so sectarian.But it is very difficult to pull a person out of the specialised tastes of his race—I am not even speaking now of the country, I am speaking of the race..this vital It is a strange creaturevery difficult. It is a being of passionthere, you know, enthusiasm and naturally of desire; buthidden right at the bottom, for examplein the subconscious, and it is comes back without your even noticing it, quite capable of getting enthusiastic over something beautifulspontaneously, of admiring, sensing anything greater and nobler than itselfquite naturally. And if really anything Even on this very point: the woman of your race is always much more beautiful occurs in than the beingwoman of other races—spontaneously, if there it is a movement having an exceptional valuethe spontaneous taste. That's what I mean. So, well, it may get enthusiastic you must rise above that. I am not even speaking of those who find everything that's outside their own family or caste very ugly and it bad. I am not speaking at all of these people. I am not even speaking of those for whom one country is capable much more beautiful than another. And yet, these people have already risen above the altogether ordinary way of thinking. I am not even speaking of giving itself with complete devotion—with a generosity that question of race.... It is not foundvery difficult, for exampleone must go right down, in right down within oneself into the mental domain nor in subconscious—and even farther—to discover the physicalroot of these things. It has that fullness Therefore, if you want to have the sense of beauty in action that comes precisely from its capacity to get enthused and throw itself wholly without reserve into what it does. Heroes are always people who have a strong vitalwhich is quite independent of all these tastes, and when the vital becomes passionate about something, it is no longer taste of the race— you must have a reasonable being but a warrior <nowiki>; it is wholly involved in its action and universal consciousness . Otherwise how can perform exceptional things because you have it does ? You will always have preferences. Even if these are not calculateactive and conscious preferences, does not reasonthey are subconscious preferences, instincts. So, does not say "One must take precautionsto know true beauty independent of all form, one must not do this, must not do thatrise above all form ." It becomes reckless, And once you have known it gets carried away, as people say, it gives itself totally. Thereforebeyond every form, it you can do magnificent things if recognise it is guided in the right wayany form whatsoever, indifferently. And that becomes very interesting. (The Mother, 9 September 1953)</nowiki><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/921-septemberoctober-1953#p19p61</ref>
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<div style="color: #000000;">From beauty to greater beauty, from joy to intenser joy, by an especial adjustment of the senses"—yes, that would be the normal course of a divine manifestation, however gradual, in Matter.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/spiritual-evolution-and-the-supramental#p34</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
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 means that you are depriving the Divine of this manifestation in the material and you hand over that part to the Asura. <div style="text-alignref>http: center;">♦//incarnateword.in/cwm/13/india#p224</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">The beginning of the heart's attraction to the Divine may be impersonal, the touch of an impersonal joy in something universal or transcendent that has revealed itself directly or indirectly to our emotional or our aesthetic being or to our capacity of spiritual felicity. That which we thus grow aware of is the Ananda Brahman, the bliss existence. There is an adoration of an impersonal Delight and Beauty, of a pure and an infinite perfection to which we can give no name or form, a moved attraction of the soul to some ideal and infinite Presence, Power, existence in the world or beyond it, which in some way becomes psychologically or spiritually sensible to us and then more and more intimate and real. That is the call, the touch of the bliss existence upon us. Then to have always the joy and nearness of its presence, to know what it is, so as to satisfy the intellect and the intuitional mind of its constant reality, to put our passive and, so far as we can manage it, our active, our inner immortal and even our outer mortal being into perfect harmony with it, grow into a necessity of our living. And to open ourselves to it is what we feel to be the one true happiness, to live into it the sole real perfection.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-ananda-brahman#p2</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
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. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/adverse-align: center;">♦forces#p28</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">On this ignorant surface we become dimly aware of something that can be called a soul as distinct from mind, life or body; we feel it not only as our mental idea or vague instinct of ourselves, but as a sensible influence in our life and character and action. A certain sensitive feeling for all that is true and good and beautiful, fine and pure and noble, a response to it, a demand for it, a pressure on mind and life to accept and formulate it in our thought, feelings, conduct, character is the most usually recognised, the most general and characteristic, though not the sole sign of this influence of the psyche.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-triple-transformation#p5</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
To accept the uglinesses of the lower nature under the pretext that they exist―if this is what is meant by realism―does not form part of the sadhana. Our aim is not to accept these things and enjoy them, but to get rid of them and create a life of spiritual beauty and perfection. That cannot be done as long as we accept these uglinesses. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/desires-impulses-and-self-align: center;">♦control#p8</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">To come into contact with the higher mind consciousness is not enough, it is only an indispensable stage. There must be a descent of the Divine Force from yet loftier and more powerful reaches. A transformation of the higher consciousness into a supramental light and power, a transformation of the vital and its life-force into a pure, wide, calm, intense and powerful instrument of the Divine Energy, a transformation of the physical itself into a form of divine light, divine action, strength, beauty and joy are impossible without this descending Force from the now invisible summits. That is why in this Yoga the ascent to the Divine which it has in common with other paths of Yoga is not enough; there must be too a descent of the Divine to transform all the energies of the mind, life and body.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-vital-and-other-levels-of-being#p8</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
...to be in such a state of purity and beauty that you do not perceive ugliness and evil—it is like something that does not touch you because it does not exist in you. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-align: center;">♦49#p5</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being, long hidden within and felt only in its rare influences, is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the Sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure,—for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions,—on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-i#p22</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
For the spiritual man the mind's dream of perfect beauty is realised in an eternal love, beauty and delight that has no dependence and is equal behind all objective appearances... <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-align: center;">♦threefold-life#p20</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;"center>A first condition of the soul's complete emergence is a direct contact in the surface being with the spiritual Reality. Because it comes from that, the psychic element in us turns always towards whatever in phenomenal Nature seems to belong to a higher Reality and can be accepted as its sign and character. At first, it seeks this Reality through the good, the true, the beautiful, through all that is pure and fine and high and noble: but although this touch through outer signs and characters can modify and prepare the nature, it cannot entirely or most inwardly and profoundly change it. For such an inmost change the direct contact with the Reality itself is indispensable since nothing else can so deeply touch the foundations of our being and stir it or cast the nature by its stir into a ferment of transmutation. Mental representations, emotional and dynamic figures have their use and value; Truth, Good and Beauty are in themselves primary and potent figures of the Reality, and even in their forms as seen by the mind, as felt by the heart, as realised in the life can be lines of an ascent: but it is in a spiritual substance and being of them and of itself that That which they represent has to come into our experience. ~</divcenter>
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That [feeling the Mother's Presence, Love, Joy, Beauty] is one part of the psychic experience—the other is a complete self-giving, absence of demand, a prominence of the psychic being by which all that is false, wrong, egoistic, contrary to the Divine Truth, Divine Will, Divine Purity and Light is shown, falls away, cannot prevail in the nature. With all that the increase of the psychic qualities, gratitude, obedience, unselfishness, fidelity to the true perception, true impulse etc. that comes from the Mother or leads to the Mother. When this side grows, then the other, the Presence, Love, Joy, Beauty, can develop and be permanently there. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-psychic-being-and-its-role-in-align: center;">♦sadhana#p5</divref>
All those who have been able to create something beautiful or useful have always been persons who have known how to discipline themselves.<div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/23-align: center;">♦june-1934#p3</divref>
The man of genius may use anything at all and make something beautiful because he has genius; but give this genius a perfect instrument and he will make something wonderful. Take a great musician; well, even with a wretched piano and missing notes, he will produce something beautiful; but give him a good piano, well-tuned, and he will do something still more beautiful. The consciousness is the same in either case but for expression it needs a good instrument—a body with mental, vital, psychic and physical capacities. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/15-january-align: center;">♦1951#p11</divref>
There must be order and harmony in work. Even what is apparently the most insignificant thing must be done with perfect perfection, with a sense of cleanliness, beauty, harmony and order. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/progress-and-perfection-in-align: center;">♦work#p26</divref>
For the work simply aspire for the Force to use you, put yourself inwardly in relation with the Mother when doing it and make it your aim to be the instrument for the expression of beauty without regard to personal fame or the praise and blame of others. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/mental-align: center;">♦development-and-sadhana#p18</divref>
Beautiful conduct—not politeness which is an outer thing, however valuable,—but beauty founded upon a spiritual realisation of unity and harmony projected into life, is certainly part of the perfect perfection. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/imperfections-and-periods-of-align: center;">♦arrest#p12</divref>
To think constantly of the harmony of the body, of the beauty of the movements, of not doing anything that is ungraceful and awkward. You can obtain a rhythm of movement and gesture which is very exceptional. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/17-align: center;">♦july-1957#p11</divref>
One may seek within oneself, one may remember, may observe; one must notice what is going on, one must pay attention, that's all. 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. There are a thousand ways, one has only to be awake and to watch. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/26-align: center;">♦december-1956#p23</divref>
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. It will give itself more completely than any other part of the being, for it does not calculate. It follows its passion and enthusiasm. When it has desires, its desires are violent, arbitrary, and it does not at all take into account the good or bad of others; it doesn't care the least bit. But when it gives itself to something beautiful, it does not calculate either, it will give itself entirely without knowing whether it will do good or harm to it. It is a very precious instrument. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/9-align: center;">♦september-1953#p22</divref>
One believes he has his own way of thinking. Not at all. It depends totally upon the people one speaks with or the books he has read or on the mood he is in. It depends also on whether you have a good or bad digestion, it depends on whether you are shut up in a room without proper ventilation or whether you are in the open air; it depends on whether you have a beautiful landscape before you; it depends on whether there is sunshine or drain! You are not aware of it, but you think all kinds of things, completely different according to a heap of things which have nothing to do with you! <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-align: center;">♦1954#p51</divref>
And on the trust he has in what happens to him, on the absence of the mind's critical sense, and a simplicity of heart, and a youthful and active energy―it depends on all that―on a kind of inner vital generosity: one must not be too egoistic, one must not be too miserly, nor too practical, too utilitarian―indeed there are all sorts of things one should not be... like children. And then, one must have a lively power of imagination, for―I seem to be telling you stupid things, but it is quite true―there is a world in which you are the supreme maker of forms: that is your own particular vital world. You are the supreme fashioner and you can make a marvel of your world if you know how to use it. If you have an artistic or poetic consciousness, if you love harmony, beauty, you will build there something marvellous which will tend to spring up into the material manifestation. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-align: center;">♦1956#p55</divref>
I have said that from a young age children should be taught to respect good health, physical strength and balance. The great importance of beauty must also be emphasised. 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. When we speak of the other aspects of an integral education, we shall see what inner conditions are to be fulfilled so that this beauty can one day be manifested <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/physical-align: center;">♦education#p12</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">...a girl who had no education whatever; she was a dancer and danced tolerably well. After she took up Yoga, she danced only for friends; but her dancing attained a depth of expression and beauty which was not there before. And although she was not educated, she began to write wonderful things; for she had visions and expressed them in the most beautiful language. But there were ups and downs in her Yoga, and when she was in a good condition, she wrote beautifully, but otherwise was quite dull and stupid and uncreative. (The Mother, 28 July 1929) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-july-1929#p7</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
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. For there is a psychological health just as there is a Physical health, a beauty and harmony of the sensations as of the body and its movements. 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. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-align: center;">♦education#p11</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;"center>...one must have a universal consciousness in order to see and recognise it [beauty]. For instance, if your consciousness is limited to one place, that is, it is a national consciousness (the consciousness of any one country), what is beautiful for one country is not beautiful for another. The sense of beauty is different. For example (I could make you laugh with a story), I knew in Paris the son of the king of Dahomey (he was a negro—the king of Dahomey was a negro) and this boy had come to Paris to study Law. He used to speak French like a Frenchman. But he had remained a negro, you understand. And he was asked (he used to tell us all kinds of stories about his life as a student), someone asked him in front of me: "Well, when you marry, whom will you marry?"—"Ah! a girl from my country, naturally, they alone are beautiful...." (Laughter) Now, for those who are not negroes, negro beauty is a little difficult to see! And yet, this was quite spontaneous. He was fully convinced it was impossible for anyone to think otherwise.... "Only the women of my country are beautiful!"~</divcenter>
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== Physical Practices for Artists ==
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Tamas brings into our emotional nature insensibility, indifference, want of sympathy and openness, the shut soul, the callous heart, the soon spent affection and languor of the feelings, into our aesthetic and sensational nature the dull aesthesis, the limited range of response, the insensibility to beauty, all that makes in man the coarse, heavy and vulgar spirit. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-liberation-of-the-align: center;">♦nature#p5</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">One may seek within oneself, one may remember, may observe; one must notice what is going on, one must pay attention, that's all. 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. There are a thousand ways, one has only to be awake and to watch. (The Mother, 26 December 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/26-december-1956#p23</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
The only thing in the world which still seems intolerable to me now, is all the physical deterioration, the physical suffering, the ugliness, the inability to express that capacity for beauty which is in every being. But that too will be conquered one day. There too the power will come one day to shift the needle a little. Only, we must rise higher in consciousness: the deeper one wants to go down into matter, the higher is it necessary to rise in consciousness. That will take time. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/19-align: center;">♦february-1958#p39</divref>
It is the physical centre—sex is only one of its movements. Naturally, if the sex is active (instead of giving place to Beauty and Ananda) and if the lower movements are active, it forms an obstacle to the establishment of the higher consciousness. But the higher can descend, if there is at all an opening, even before the lower movements have definitely gone—it has then to complete the work of displacing them. <div style="text-alignref>http: center;">♦//incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sex#p102</divref>
The desires of the heart and the body which stand in the way of Brahmacharya give a glow to the vital and emotive nature and prevent it from being dry and shut to feeling. To keep the heart warm and open, not dried up or closed, and at the same time attain to spiritual purity the best way is to turn it towards that which is eternal, pure and ever true, behind and beyond these earthly emotions—the ever-living Love, Bliss and Beauty. <div style="text-alignref>http: center;">♦//incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sex#p97</divref>
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...when one sees something beautiful, instead of admiring, loving, being happy, wishing that it grows and progresses (which is the true divine movement), one feels a sort of anger, rage, one wants to destroy, one wants to damage. This is the movement of the adverse forces. Unfortunately, this is quite spontaneous in many people, and even in children... the instinct to destroy and spoil. Well, it is the presence of the adverse forces. And these are forces which come directly from the vital world and incarnate on earth in human consciousness, and at times also in animal consciousness. It is the hatred for things beautiful, for what is pure, what is good, what is true. It is the hatred of the divine Presence. And naturally, with this hatred, the will to destroy and damage, to spoil, mar, deform, disfigure. One step more and it is the will to inflict suffering. And all this is the influence of the adverse forces, which acts quite spontaneously in the inconscient, in the subconscient, in half-consciousness. It is only the pure and luminous consciousness which can oppose this and prevent it from acting. But the state of the world is such that this is a constant battle. Very few people can escape from this hold. Everyone generally has a tiny little corner in him—at times quite small, at times bigger, sometimes quite unconscious, sometimes a little conscious, sometimes superbly, completely conscious—which likes destroying, likes spoiling. And the state of the world is such that when one gives way to that, one is helped by an onrush of forces which lie waiting for the opportunity, waiting for the moment to be able to manifest, which need human collaboration to be able to manifest and seek it. As soon as the opportunity comes, they rush forth, throwing out a formidable amount of energy. And so one feels stronger as soon as one begins to do evil. That is why it is easier, whilst if one wants to react, refuses to become the instrument of these forces, one must fight hard, be very strong, very straight, very pure, very sincere, and above all, not egoistic. One must not turn round upon oneself, and must never be afraid. And this is not easy. That is, the world is in such a state that in order never to be moved by the adverse forces—the forces of darkness, destruction, wickedness, hatred—one must be a hero, a true hero, who is not afraid of blows and fears nothing, who never turns round upon himself and doesn't have that kind of self-pity which is so despicable a thing. That is why... in order not to do evil, think evil, wish evil, never, under any circumstances, one must be a hero It is not always easy to be a hero. The days one is tired, the days one wants to rest, not to make any effort, one slips, everything slips down. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/19-august-align: center;">♦1953#p32</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">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</refcenter>~</divcenter>
<div style="color: #000000;">When a child tells you a beautiful dream in which he had many powers and all things were very beautiful, be very careful never to tell him, "Oh! life is not like that", for you are doing something wrong. You must on the contrary tell him, "Life ought to be like that, and it will be like that!" (The Mother, 31 July 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/31-july-1957#p17</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
This world is a chaos in which darkness and light, false-hood and truth, death and life, ugliness and beauty, hate and love are so closely intertwined that it is almost impossible to distinguish one from the other, still more impossible to disentangle them and put an end to an embrace which has the horror of a pitiless struggle, all the more keen because veiled, especially in human consciousness where the conflict changes into an anguish for knowledge, for power, for conquest,—a combat obscure and painful, all the more atrocious because it seems to be without issue, but capable of a solution on a level above the sensations and feelings and ideas, beyond the domain of the mind—in the Divine Consciousness. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/the-divine-working-align: center;">♦in-the-universe#p9</divref>
== In Art What is Beauty? ==
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<span div style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">I have objected ...in love for the past Divine or for one whom one feels to vairagya of be divine, the ascetic kind and Bhakta feels an intense reverence for the tamasic kind—and by the tamasic kind I mean that spirit which comes defeated from lifeLoved, a sense of something of immense greatness, not because it is really disgusted with life but because it could not cope with it beauty or conquer its prizes; value and for it comes to Yoga as himself a kind strong impression of asylum for the maimed or weak his own comparative unworthiness and a passionate desire to grow into likeness with that which one adores. What does come very often with the Divine as inrush of Love is an exaltation, a consolation prize for the failed boys in the world-class. The vairagya feeling of one who has tasted the world's gifts or prizes but found them insufficient ora greatening within, finally, tasteless of new powers and turns away towards a higher and more high or beautiful ideal or the vairagya of possibilities in one who has done his part in life's battles nature or of an intensification of the nature; but seen that something greater is demanded of the soulnot exactly self-reverence. There is a deeper self reverence possible, a true emotion, is perfectly helpful and a good gate to sense of the Yoga. Also the sattwic vairagya which has learned what life is value and turns to what is above and behind life. By even the ascetic vairagya I mean that which denies life and world altogether and wants to disappear into sacredness of the Indefinite—and I object to it for those who come to this Yoga because it is incompatible with my aim which is to bring soul, even the Divine into life. But if one is satisfied with mind, life , body as it is, then there is no reason to seek to bring an offering or itself the Divine into life,—so vairagya in temple for the sense inner presence of dissatisfaction with life as it is is perfectly admissible and even in a certain sense indispensable for my Yogathe Beloved. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2928/asceticismphilosophical-thought-and-the-integral-yoga#p31</ref> </div>
== Physical Why is Beauty Important? ==
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. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/gnosis-and-align: center;">♦ananda#p18</divref>
<div style="color: #000000;">The only thing in the world which still seems intolerable to me now, is all the physical deterioration, the physical suffering, the ugliness, the inability to express that capacity for beauty which is in every being. But that too will be conquered one day. There too the power will come one day to shift the needle a little. Only, we must rise higher in consciousness: the deeper one wants to go down into matter, the higher is it necessary to rise in consciousness. That will take time. (The Mother, 19 February 1958) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/19-february-1958#p39</refcenter>~</divcenter>
Love is a passion and it seeks for two things, eternity and intensity, and in the relation of the Lover and Beloved the seeking for eternity and for intensity is instinctive and self-born. Love is a seeking for mutual possession, and it is here that the demand for mutual possession becomes absolute. Passing beyond desire of possession which means a difference, it is a seeking for oneness, and it is here that the idea of oneness, of two souls merging into each other and becoming one finds the acme of its longing and the utterness of its satisfaction. Love, too, is a yearning for beauty, and it is here that the yearning is eternally satisfied in the vision and the touch and the joy of the All-beautiful. Love is a child and a seeker of Delight, and it is here that it finds the highest possible ecstasy both of the heart-consciousness and of every fibre of the being. Moreover, this relation is that which as between human being and human being demands the most and, even while reaching the greatest intensities, is still the least satisfied, because only in the Divine can it find its real and its utter satisfaction. Therefore it is here most that the turning of human emotion God-wards finds its full meaning and discovers all the truth of which love is the human symbol, all its essential instincts divinised, raised, satisfied in the bliss from which our life was born and towards which by oneness it returns in the Ananda of the divine existence where love is absolute, eternal and unalloyed.<div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-align: center;">♦godward-emotions#p14</divref>
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