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Nobility Through BeautyBy Soror
Hazel J. Fowler, F. R. C."To regard the beautiful means to improve."--Plato. [From The Rosicrucian Digest April 1939] His is ever the privilege of regarding Beauty, therefore he should be always in a state of improvement whatever experiences come to him. For Beauty is spread round about him in all forms--its inspiration is one of life's richest blessings. He is empty indeed who cannot respond to it. First there is the Beauty of the earth itself. Lakes and rivers, canyons and waterfalls, add a majesty to one who beholds them. More soothing than any opiate, the moss-cool banks of a mountain stream, or incessant roll of silver surf upon the sand. The eloquence of snow-capped peaks begets an elevation of the mind; and every pine-crested horizon reflects a vaster circle to the eye. Behold the glory of a summer garden and in another instant its rainbow tints have been transported to your own dream-plot. Mayhap your reds and blues, your golds and pinks are banked upon another print--the essence of color has distilled its primal Beauty, and however or wherever used, it will pulse to the original rhythm. For distilled Beauty, caught from a summer garden or a winter landscape, may be transmuted into painting, literature or music with sudden and equal facility. Beauty sets the creative faculties into motion--when you feel yourself quicken to an aspect of Beauty, be sure your divine self-hood has put on stature. Any one phase of Beauty calls up another. A rose placed in a hand, and instantly the exquisite revelation of some long-lost friendship, a poem, book, or craggy pine-swept ridge, has been recalled, and for that brief time the Past is a joy projected from the Temple of Memory. We can never assume or enjoy our largest destiny until we have learned to use all the Powers at our command. We grow out of our Pasts, so that each moment means expansion, and any constructive agency, Beauty or otherwise, that can bestir the unused Power of Consciousness is a wise asset to the noble evolution of living. No Near, no Far contemplated, but the mental horizon has extended to meet it, and cast its wonderment beyond. We are essentially Mystics; we wonder ever about the Unseen and the Unknown. And so it is that much of the Beauty of the universe is lost to many of us because it is invisible to most. We must learn to change our own tempo, to vibrate and attune ourselves to the Most High if we would become sharers in the Unseen. We cannot see the nacreous color of a ray of light until we use the spectrum. So much we make ourselves Instruments of Beauty by intensifying our lives to that which lies beyond our normal sight and hearing and understanding. Beauty is retro-radiant--it gives back itself in whatever form--its rhythm will always vibrate to the elemental glory. By making ourselves the prism, the instrument, we can reflect the beyond in all its beauteous aspects. By the application of Natural Laws we can learn to contact the glory of the FIRST LOGOS. I like to think that people are Nature, only God-endowed, more-so. After Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tse and Jesus, we are poor indeed, who are not richer. The Beauty of such souls is also retro-radiant. How the Light of Jesus, measureless and vital, still projects its first glory! Witness the limitless return of those other retro-radiant attributes--faith, trust, charity, friendship, kindness and love. Shed them like Light from our own hearts, and we suddenly have an elevated self. It is impossible to contemplate Beauty in any form without becoming richer. And it is equally impossible to become richer with the riches of the Spirit (for we are speaking in terms of the Ideal) without improving ourselves. We are fortunate if we can look back upon the years as a continuous experience of self-improvement through the Mysticism of Beauty. The mystic finds upon the Path Beauty of such grandeur and scope as to be almost unbelievable. Can you see a soul shine forth its aura or soul-light and remain your static self? Can some more advanced student--or teacher--heal your mental, physical and spiritual wounds with a Power at the command of all, and you not demand of yourself the same Divinity? Thus, Mind widens its horizons; Heart quickens its response to the problems of living; Consciousness learns the art of projecting into the Unseen; and at last Beauty, which is Truth in all its radiance, stands at the door of Illumination and behold, a Soul commands the Immortal Energy! Such advancement means the earnest study and continuous contemplation and application of Natural Law until, from our own elevation, we feel our own majesty radiating back upon us. We see how others are lifted up as it were by our changed natures. Ourselves--retro-radiant! Beauty is a Condition of Consciousness wherein we see all about us in Harmony. Through Beauty we attune ourselves to the loftier principles of Living and are made reverent. It is such Beauty that gives Nobility to Living! | ||
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