Beauty has three levels — indication, expression and exposure. Spirituality is that which indicates beauty or gently reveals it; this is the subtle aspect. Art expresses beauty. Science too has a role in beauty, for science exposes beauty. And all these aspects are to be found in nature.
Have you noticed the beauty in every aspect of creation, in every facet of nature? In creation, there is beauty, in the operation of creation there is beauty and in the destruction of creation there is beauty. Even in transformation there is beauty. You can see it in nature all the time. Spring has its own beauty; in midsummer everything is green, in autumn all the leaves fall and still it looks spectacular! During the rainy season the water falls look so beautiful.
You can see beneath the beauty there is a deeper beauty, a maintenance principle that sustains this beauty time after time. Even a dead log of wood has a record of its beauty embedded in it - in its genes, in its particles, of how it was, and how it is now.
You can even find beauty in emotions. All the emotions that get exhibited naturally are appreciated. One looks the most beautiful when he/she is natural i.e. in ease with the nature and surroundings. Look at children; they are always natural and thus they look so beautiful. When they cry; there is some beauty in their crying. When they laugh, when they smile, there is a beauty in it. Even if they are angry, there is a beauty in it.
But remember also that you must see the deep beauty in people beyond their expressions. What a person expresses is not what he or she is all about. There is a lot of unexpressed love in each life. Just recognising this fact allows you to expand. Then you will never be stuck with what someone says or does. What someone says is very small, like the gift wrapping or the ribbon on a package. If you don’t like the ribbon, just take it off and look at what is inside. No box is empty. There is a place for everybody in the heart of the Divine. That is what Jesus meant when He said, ‘There are many rooms in the house of my Father’.
The Divine is beauty and beauty is divine. The ways of God and the ways of the wise have always been indirect. There is a saying in Sanskrit, ‘Paroksha priya hi vai devaha’ which means Gods love indirect methods.
Direct expression is necessary at times, especially for one who is not awake. The awakened hints and indirect expression make it all the more charming. Everything has its place and its time. Total exposure is not the language of the heart. Total exposure provokes; concealed beauty invokes. That is why this nature conceals the whole creation inside itself during the night and reveals it the next day in the morning.
Without life there is no beauty. A body is beautiful because there is life in it. The entire creation - the trees, the birds, animals, stones and rivers are full of life. And life is the beauty of this planet, of this universe. Life is not just the biological life which just lives on oxygen. When I say life I mean the consciousness which permeates much beyond, far and wide; there is not a place where it doesn’t exist. So much power and energy, so much beauty and wealth have been given to us by the divine without which not even a blade of grass can move.
Beauty is all pervasive. You only have to open your eyes and see the reality that is there.
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