Beauty in the Beast

Beauty in the Beast

P.D. Ouspensky said, “The work must be emotional.” World 12 [Higher Emotional Center] is stronger than World 6 [Higher Intellectual Center] because it is emotional. – The Teacher

I attended a piano recital yesterday and was awash in three beautiful pieces of music. What a soul-filling treat: the beauty of Beethoven and Chopin on the keyboard in the hands of a master pianist. It was elevating and transformative—at least when I was present and my imagination under control.

The beauty of the music before me was a psychological catalyst for consciousness. In Phaedrus, Plato asserts that beauty, wisdom, and goodness nourish the soul’s wings, which grow best in their presence. That is how it felt yesterday. I was emotional about the gorgeous music and being present to it.

Beauty is not only found in obvious forms; sometimes it needs to be summoned up and discovered in the dust. I recall an experience in which something that was not so beautiful was miraculously transformed into something exquisite.

Many years ago, I was working in an industrial setting, collecting air pollution samples from the roof of a large metal smelting facility. It was very filthy, and the area was vast, so in every direction that I gazed all I could see was the roof and black, lifeless manufactured surroundings for acres. I was on this site all alone for eight-hour shifts. To use my time more productively one day, I decided to read some poetry between sampling events.

Only one thing makes monotony bearable and that is beauty, the light of the eternal. – Simone Weil

As I would find on that day, my efforts to be more intentional and to fill my time with poetry were well rewarded. As I looked about me, I suddenly became aware of some small beads of water condensation that had formed on the roof surface. Remember, this was a stark and bleak site.

I cannot honestly say whether there was a cause-and-effect association, but as I looked at the small beads of water, an impression of pearls came to my mind’s eye. These beads of water looked like silvery white pearls spread out on the roof all around me. To me, they were pearls, real pearls. The impression filled me with a sense of awe and joy. I was thrust into a Higher State. The pearls of Presence had enlivened and transformed the ugly site.

I later realized that it was my initial attitude, my perspective that made this industrial site appear ugly. The water droplets were pearls, and I was the only person in the world beholding them. By changing my attitude, I was graced with a higher experience. Beauty is presence.

As I discovered, my perception of beauty had been transformative. I made beauty out of mundane, dull, and unattractive conditions. I felt as if I were looking at pearls because my state had been lifted to a higher place.

As the old saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In my mind’s eye, I was re-oriented and found beauty in the beastly. The Teacher has often said, do your best to raise the level of impressions in your environment. Try to make the moment as beautiful as you can, but if you cannot, then transform whatever is before you. And when you transform it, as I found, that which is beastly becomes beautiful.

Beauty is immortal, like the sun's might lighting all the worlds and creations made with joy of its light. We thank You for all Art. − Makhfi

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Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer