Something very interesting occurs when you see or experience that which you find beautiful. Maybe your pulse races or your eyes widen, you may feel a powerful charge from it, as if something within has been ignited. Awakened. This is a sign that your personal energy — your sense of self, your unique vibration and presence in this world — is expanding.
This may all happen on a very subtle, almost unperceived level, so the next time you are struck by something that you find beautiful, pay attention to how your body responds. Don’t let your thoughts distract you. Quiet your mind and listen with your body. Do you feel a sense of opening, of happiness? Do you feel a rush of adrenaline, or a flush to your cheeks? Are you smiling? Does your heart quicken? These physical events highlight why Beauty is such an important instrument not only in our day to day lives, but on our spiritual path towards embracing our interconnectedness: our Oneness.
“A dualism is a tension of two principles each embodying the contrasting features of the other. But their very contrast is what causes the opposing principle to emerge as an object of perception in this realm. Therefore, what you physically perceive is the obverse of that which is hidden from your perception, the hidden being the reverse. Thus you have the obverse and the reverse, which their antithetical qualities mutually support each other’s existence, …“ – Amarananda Bhairavan, excerpt from Kali’s Odiyya: a shaman’s true story of initiation
La Grande Odalisque, Ingres
Beauty is seductive, by design. And well she should be. In this guise she becomes a Goddess brought here solely to guide us into elevated states of awareness. Beauty causes us to feel awe and wonder, love and adoration (how many times have you heard “Oooh, I love that!“accompanied with smiles and arms opening, ready to embrace?). The heart expands as beauty engages us and draws us into a bigger world. We are included in something larger than just ourselves, even if unwittingly. We aspire to transform whatever separates us into the dual functions of this world, and experience the union that our soul inherently knows.
“Dualistic thinking, and the polarization it can lead to within us and between us and others, is created and intensifies with the distance of our minds from the Now of ourselves. As our minds return to our now-ness, an atmosphere strong in tolerance, trust, and compassion emerges spontaneously. This healthier and happier state is not the antithesis of a negative or lesser reality. It is not a question of opposites where if there is “good,” there must also be “bad”, it is simply that the distance between our minds and our true selves has diminished.” – Richard Moss, MD, in The Mandala of Being
To be clear – I’m not speaking of what we feel we need and want, which is merely the Ego grasping after permanence. I’m not talking about superficial “beauty”, the modern-day obsession with perfection, plastic surgery and the like, or the compulsive need to have the next new thing. These are signs of an unbalanced association with Beauty which risks demeaning Her, and show a real need for some collective, deep self-awareness work. Such unbalance occurs when we allow the Ego’s insecurities and needs to rule our impulses, when we become attached to the power and passion that Beauty incites, and are no longer in a relationship with Her. In this situation we are actually perpetuating duality and polarization, not cultivating Oneness and relationship.
What I am talking about is the moment, the image, the touch that strikes you in an instant on levels way beyond superficial, and moves deep inside your heart of hearts — all the more fantastic because it
- Testa di Fanciulla, da Vinci
is fleeting. The most beautiful things in this world are such because they are impermanent. They take our breath away; and in that infinite space between each breath, the moment we lose ourselves and the moment we begin to breathe again, Divine Humanity flourishes. Beauty is born – true beauty.
This primal, physical response is a precursor to being in relationship with that which is beyond just the “I”. It is the first glimmer of the soul rising up, reaching out through its human vessel to manifest Oneness here on Earth.
When this happens in Nature, doors are entered through which we better understand and value our place in the natural world, and come to right relationship with that world. When it happens with a piece of art, we are invited to appreciate and value our fellow kin, and our ability to express and share our passions. We expand our connections instead of contracting and ignoring, even denying them. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, which transcends cultures and eras, is a part of our collective consciousness and is considered by most to be a paragon of beauty. If you are moved by its beauty, something deep inside awakens and rises upward towards that which is without. True beauty promises to expand our awareness, to put us in connection and in concert with All That Is.
This is why beauty is an avenue to the Gods — to the Great Mystery, the Source of All, the Great Oneness — because it serves to show the way towards connection. Can you see that Beauty is an initiator into union with your world?
Think of a curious child playing with shiny baubles. They can’t stop themselves; they are fascinated and want to explore, to discover what that shiny wonder is. The world comes alive in that moment! They have an unabashed, goofy joy bubbling out of them. This is how beauty strikes the child within, in accord with one’s soul: a gorgeous shiny object that demands to be explored and discovered, loved and adored.
Maybe that is precisely why we get so confused and caught up with the base needs and wants in our pursuit of Beauty — the Ego is seeking to evolve, too. In its own way, it wants to experience Beauty as well. But by its very nature the Ego can only go so far with Beauty, who is so elusive. Ego is not good at being vulnerable, it can’t handle impermanence very well either, a hallmark of the non-dual nature of Oneness. I imagine the Ego standing there, gazing at Botticelli’s Venus, wishing it could look like that, or scheming on how to win it, control it or steal it. Meanwhile the Soul simply enjoys it, revels in it and winks at Ego with a knowing smile. The Soul knows that we all are already, indeed, That. It sees no separation, no hesitation. No concern with whether the individual’s choice of beauty is acceptable, ‘cool’ enough, appropriate. It embraces. It laughs at fear and offers it candy.
The Birth of Venus, Botticelli
But understand: Beauty, heady and seductive as She is, requires of us constant mindfulness. Beauty is the doorway, the threshold to beyond the place where you stand in the museum of your culture; take care you do not linger too long and fall under her spell. We risk in this case losing the gifts she offers, or even worse: creating dogma around them. We do this when we begin to dictate what Beauty is or must be, or begin to judge others for not having a Beauty like our own. We are no longer benefiting from Her original purpose, which is to bring us into union, because now we are getting caught in the web of duality, perpetuating distinctions, defenses and illusions that separate us once more. Beauty disappears, leaving us with the superficial Ego to pick up the tab and take us home, and try – and fail — to keep us warm, to make us feel truly loved.
This is why society so readily gets mired in the glamour aspects of ‘beauty’ – part of the magic, the allure of beauty is the power she holds: the promise of that very connection, that collective awe and wonder. But she requires that you cross over, that you not get stuck on the edge. When we cross over we enter new levels of connection and purpose: Unity. After all, deep down inside, every human being wants to ultimately feel connected: to feel loved and included, cherished no matter what, in all our parts: the weak and the strong, the ugly and the gorgeous. But when we cling and attach, trying to make it all our own, we begin to desecrate Beauty.When we can’t trust the promise, or we don’t feel worthy of it, we blame it. We destroy beauty for the very reason we love it, because of the connection it promises and our fear that we don’t have the capacity for it while in physical form, or worse – that we are not worthy. That which we most need and want, what we so deeply long for, we fear. Beauty holds in Her hand the exacting power of “ugliness,” ready to break the spell should we get stuck at her threshold.
Picasso’s painting became a Tour de Force, exactly because it is pain and agony, held in the hand of Beauty. It creates unity and awareness in a way that is approachable, even through the horror that it depicts. It strips away the dual forces of good and evil, sharing all at once the forms of beauty that convey heart-wrenching brutality. This is a reality of our base nature unbridled: war, violence, and destruction. And yet Picasso harnesses the power of Beauty to draw us in, to invite us to that expansive field where Beauty resides: to bring us to that threshold and push us beyond it, where we can approach what we fear and declare as ‘evil’ or ‘ugly’ in ourselves and bring it into union within as well.
Guernica, Picasso
“When we observe ourselves and our world from ordinary consciousness, we are continuously reacting or attempting to rearrange our experience so that we can evolve towards some idealized self image, gain greater control and personal power, or simply eliminate some discomfort. But transformation implies freeing our attention from these considerations through awareness, thereby liberating our energy, so we are carried to a more expanded consciousness.” – Richard Moss, MD, The Black Butterfly: an Invitation to Radical Aliveness
Beauty takes a great risk, in paintings such as Guernica and many others – because we tend to destroy what we fear, what we cannot easily embrace. Ultimately, in order to walk in that field of non-dual awareness, we must come to see that there is a greater awareness beyond good, bad or ugly. There is, in fact, something beyond committing to permanence and duality as our crutch, which guarantees that only that which we decide and attach to must or will happen. In this way, Beauty is not only an initiator, she becomes the sacrifice to our liberation, willing to lead us through her gateway, and further still into that open field. Because when we master this sense of union and oneness through the eyes of beauty, when we surrender to her secrets, we then are capable of beginning the next leg of the journey in consciousness: we begin to see no line drawn between beauty and anything else in this world.
Judithe, Klimt
Once through the Gateway, we rest in Oneness, and the promise of impermanence: Anything Can Happen. There is no clinging to Ego’s longing for the superficial forms of Beauty, there is no more fear requiring we destroy what we cannot behold – we no longer create contracts that guarantee only that which we decide and therefore attach to, will happen. All this and so much more, is the promise that is hidden in plain sight with every aspect of Beauty that is created –and desecrated– on a daily basis. It creates an expansion, a reverence within us that wants to sing and express and ultimately to be in union with. And from this expansion we experience our unique expression of Divinity and join with All That Is. It has been my experience that God Herself wants to see you express your soul’s fullest potential while in human form. Finding beauty, being beauty-full, embracing Her as your initiator into Oneness is a powerful way to assist this happening.
In my experience a divine life, a fruitful spiritual path, is all about grappling with just this: the Gods want you to be beautiful. However we experience that, no matter how it is received by others. In the personal expression of this Beauty, in the embrace of experiencing it, I become inexplicably joined with Me…You…Great Mystery…Divine Source…God…God Herself…All That Is…Consciousness…That Which Has No Name…You…Me…Us.
One.
