4,400
edits
Changes
→How to Cultivate Beauty?
{|class="wikitable" style= "background-color: #EFEFFF; width: 100%;"
|
Read Summary of '''[[Beauty Summary|Beauty]]'''
|}
= What is Beauty? =
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
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>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
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>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
== Different Ways of Perceiving Beauty : Stages ==
He means that it [seeking for beauty] is instinctive , that it isn't rational, it doesn't depend on the domain of reason, it is something instinctive. 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 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.
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) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/1-june-1955#p21</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
It [beauty] is a kind of harmony which you experience much more than think, and the true suprarational relation with beauty is not at all a "reasonable" relation (Sri Aurobindo will tell you this at the end), it completely overpasses reason, it is a contact in a higher realm. But what precisely he tells us in this paragraph is that when it is an instinct it is found mixed with movements of ignorance and a lack of culture and refinement. So this instinct is sometimes very gross and very imperfect in its expression. One can experience an aesthetic pleasure (let us call it that) in seeing something which is truly beautiful and at the same time something else which is not beautiful, but which gives one some sort of pleasure, because it is mixed, because one's aesthetic instinct is not pure, it is mixed with all kinds of sensations which are very crude and untrained. So it is here, as he says, that reason has its role, that it comes in to explain why a thing is beautiful, to educate the taste; but it is not final, and reason is not the final judge; it can very well make mistakes, only it is a little higher, as judgment, than that of a completely infrarational being who has no reason and no understanding of things. It is a stage. It is a stage, that's what he says, it is a stage. But if you want to realise true beauty, you must go beyond that, very far beyond this stage... At first your sense of beauty is instinctive, impulsive, infrarational, lacking light, wanting reason, simply without any true understanding, and so, because the origin of the aesthetic sense is infrarational, it is understood, one always says this: "There's no disputing tastes and colours." You know, there are all kinds of popular proverbs which say that the appreciation of the beautiful is not a matter of reasoning, everyone likes a particular thing he doesn't know why, he takes pleasure in looking at a thing, and this pleasure cannot be discussed. Well, this is the infrarational stage of the aesthetic sense. (The Mother, 1 June 1955)<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/1-june-1955#p24</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
The higher principle of beauty is a suprarational principle and therefore reason understands nothing at all about it. If you want to judge art by reason you are sure to say foolish things. (The Mother, 25 May 1955)<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/25-may-1955#p37</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
To understand truly what Sri Aurobindo means here, you must yourself have had the experience of transcending reason and establishing your consciousness in a world higher than the mental intelligence. For from up there you can see, firstly, that everything that exists in the universe is an expression of Sachchidananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) and therefore behind any appearance whatever, 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.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-19#p3</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
''A:'' That's a psychological problem.It depends on where their sense of beauty is located.. that there is nothing but That—something we cannot nameOne may have a physical see of beauty, cannot definea vital sense of beauty, cannot describe, but something we can feel a mental sense of beauty. If one has a moral sense of beauty—a sense of moral beauty and can more and more becomenobility—one will never be cruel. A Something that is more perfect than One will always be generous and magnanimous in all the perfectionscircumstances. But as men are made of many different pieces.... For instance, more beautiful than I was thinking about all the beauties , more marvellous than artists I knew—I knew all the marvelsgreatest artists of the last century or the beginning of this century, so that even the totality and they truly had a sense of beauty, but morally, some of all that exists cannot express itthem were very cruel. And there is nothing When the artist was seen at his work, he lived in a magnificent beauty but Thatwhen you saw the gentleman at home, he had only a very limited contact with the artist in himself and usually he became someone very vulgar, very ordinary. And Many of them did, I am sure of it is not a Something floating . But those who were unified, in nothingness: there is nothing but Thatthe sense that they truly lived their art—those, no; they were generous and good. (The Mother, 8 October 1966)<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1606/817-octobermarch-19661954#p7p33</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
...this spiritual bliss is here also in our hearts. It is hidden in from the toil of the surface mind which catches only at weak joy and flawed translations of it into various mental, vital happiness and physical forms satisfaction of beauty that comes from the joy perception of existencethe Divine everywhere. But if It plunges the mind has once grown sufficiently subtle and pure in nature inward towards its receptions and not limited by meeting with the grosser nature of our outward responses to existence, we can take a reflection of it which will wear perhaps wholly or predominantly immanent Divine in the hue of whatever is strongest in our nature. It may present itself first as a yearning for some universal Beauty which we feel in Nature heart's secret centre and man and in all , while that call is around us; or we may have the intuition there, no reproach of some transcendent Beauty egoism, no mere outward summons of which all apparent beauty here is only a symbol . That is how altruism or duty or philanthropy or service will deceive or divert it may come from its sacred longing and its obedience to those in whom the aesthetic being is developed and insistent and the instincts which, when they find form attraction of expression, make the poet and artist, are predominantDivinity within it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2423/the-anandaascent-of-the-sacrifice-brahmani#p3p23</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<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>
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. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-align: center;">♦verses#p103</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>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
...this vital is a strange creature. It is a being to be positively conscious of passion, enthusiasm the supreme Good and naturally of desire; butsupreme Beauty behind all things, for example, it is quite capable of getting enthusiastic over something beautiful, of admiring, sensing anything greater which sustains all things and nobler than itselfenables them to exist. And if really anything very beautiful occurs in the beingWhen you see Him, 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 you are able to get enthused perceive Him behind this mask and throw itself wholly without reserve into what it does. Heroes are always people who have a strong vitalthis distortion; even this ugliness, and when the vital becomes passionate about somethingthis wickedness, it this evil is no longer a reasonable being but a warrior <nowiki>; it disguise of Something which is wholly involved in its action and can perform exceptional things because it does not calculate, does not reason, does not say "One must take precautions, one must not do this, must not do that." It becomes reckless, it gets carried away, as people sayessentially beautiful or good, it gives itself totally. Thereforeluminous, it can do magnificent things if it is guided in the right waypure. (The Mother, 9 September 1953)</nowiki><ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0510/9-septemberaphorism-195349#p19p9</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<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>
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;">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>
...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;">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>
<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>
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;">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>
...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) <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/28-july-align: center;">♦1929#p7</divref>
...the close and vivid discovery of soul or self, the straining towards that which is behind life and above mind, the passion for the Eternal or the Infinite, the hunger for a freedom and wideness of consciousness and existence not limited by the narrow moulds of intellect, character and the past life-aims of humanity, the thirst for union with the Divine or for the pure bliss and beauty of spiritual existence not tied down to mental and vital values must be dismissed as a superfluous dream for which there is neither place nor necessity here. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/morality-align: center;">♦and-yoga#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>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
= Attitude to Grow in Beauty = Practices ==
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>
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;">...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>
<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>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
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;">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. (The Mother, 17 July 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/17-july-1957#p11</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>
<div style="color: #000000;">One can always try little experiments. I have said that one must use a torch, a strong light; then one must take a round within one's being. If one is very attentive, one can very easily find these ugly corners. Suppose you have a beautiful experience, that suddenly in answer to your aspiration a great light comes; you feel all flooded with joy, force, light, beauty, and have the impression that you are on the point of being transfigured... and then, it passes away—it always passes away, doesn't it? especially at the beginning—suddenly, it stops. Then you tell yourself, when you are not vigilant, "There, it came and it has gone! Poor me! It came and has gone, it just gave me a taste of the thing and then let me fall." Well, that's foolish. What you should tell yourself is, "Look, I was not able to keep it, and why was I not able to keep it?" So, you take your torch and go on a round within yourself trying to find a very close relation between the change of consciousness and the movements accompanying the cessation of the experience. And if you are very, very attentive, and make your round very scrupulously, you will find that suddenly some part of the vital or some part of the mind or of the body, something has not kept up, in this sense that mentally, instead of being immobile and attentive, something has begun to ask, "Wait a minute, what is this experience? What does it mean?", begun to try to find an explanation (what it calls an "understanding"). Or maybe in the vital something has begun to enjoy the experience: "How pleasant it is, how I would like it to grow, how good if it were constant, how...." Or something in the physical has said, "Oh! It is a bit hard to endure that, how long am I going to be able to keep it?" It is perhaps not as obvious as all this, but it is a wee bit hidden like this, somewhere. You will always find one of these three things or others analogous. Then, it is there the lantern is needed: where is the weak point? where is the egoism? where is the desire? where is that old dirt we do not want any longer? where is that thing which turns back upon itself instead of giving itself, opening itself, losing itself? which turns back upon itself, tries to take advantage of what has happened, wants to appropriate to itself the fruit of the experience? Or rather which is too weak, too hard, too rigid to be able to follow the movement?... It is that, you are now on the track, you begin precisely to put the light you have just acquired upon it; it is that you must do, focus the light upon it, turn it in such a way that the thing cannot resist it. (The Mother, 26 April 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/26-april-1951#p29</refcenter> ~</divcenter>
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>
<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 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>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
...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;">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. (The Mother, 18 April 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/18-april-1956#p55</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>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="color: #000000;">"Ours is ...in love for the most material worldDivine or for one whom one feels to be divine, but it is not necessarily 'low down'the Bhakta feels an intense reverence for the Loved, at leasta sense of something of immense greatness, not beauty or value and for that reason; if it is low down, it is because it is obscure himself a strong impression of his own comparative unworthiness and ignorant, not because it is material. It is a mistake passionate desire to make 'matter' a synonym for obscurity and ignorancegrow into likeness with that which one adores. And What does come very often with the material world too inrush of Love is not the only world in which we live: it is rather one an exaltation, a feeling of many in which we exist simultaneouslya greatening within, of new powers and high or beautiful possibilities in one way the most important 's nature or of them all. For this world an intensification of matter is the point of concentration of all the worldsnature; it but that is the field not exactly self-reverence. There is a deeper self reverence possible, a true emotion, a sense of concretisation of all the worlds; it is value and even the place where all sacredness of the worlds will have to manifest. At present it is disharmonious and obscure; but that is only an accidentsoul, a false start. One day it will become beautifuleven the mind, rhythmiclife, full body as an offering or itself the temple for the inner presence of light; for that is the consummation for which it was madeBeloved." (The Mother, 7 April 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0428/7philosophical-aprilthought-and-1951yoga#p16p31</ref></div>
<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"center>I have objected in the past to vairagya of the ascetic kind and the tamasic kind—and by the tamasic kind I mean that spirit which comes defeated from life, not because it is really disgusted with life but because it could not cope with it or conquer its prizes; for it comes to Yoga as a kind of asylum for the maimed or weak and to the Divine as a consolation prize for the failed boys in the world-class. The vairagya of one who has tasted the world's gifts or prizes but found them insufficient or, finally, tasteless and turns away towards a higher and more beautiful ideal or the vairagya of one who has done his part in life's battles but seen that something greater is demanded of the soul, is perfectly helpful and a good gate to the Yoga. Also the sattwic vairagya which has learned what life is and turns to what is above and behind life. By the ascetic vairagya I mean that which denies life and world altogether and wants to disappear into 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 the Divine into life. But if one is satisfied with life as it is, then there is no reason to seek to bring the Divine into life,—so vairagya in the sense of dissatisfaction with life as it is is perfectly admissible and even in a certain sense indispensable for my Yoga. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/asceticism-and-the-integral-yoga#p31~</refcenter>
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>
<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>
When the spirit in us is free, then what was behind this soul-force comes out in all its light, beauty and greatness, the Spirit, the Godhead who makes the nature and soul of man his foundation and living representative in cosmic being and mind, action and life. <div style="textref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/soul-force-and-align: center;">♦the-fourfold-personality#p2</divref>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>
<div style="text-align: center;">♦~</divcenter>