THE FACE OF BEAUTY
When we recognize beauty, we perceive god in one of its forms. Every beauty seen here below on earth by people of perception resembles more than anything else that source from which we all come. There is a mostly unknown story of Jesus and his disciples coming across a dead dog rotting in the open air. All the disciples were disgusted for obvious reasons. But Jesus approached the dog and remarked with total amazement at the dog’s teeth, mentioning how fine they were. Can you see beauty in a dead dog as Jesus did? A similar story from Zen philosophy has a student asking his teacher, “What is holy?” The teacher responded, “A mountain of shit on a silver plate.” The idea here is that if you look hard enough and with great attention, you can find beauty everywhere. It is said in occult circles that god has made no unclean thing. It is even said by those mystics who have examined such, that the king of hell is beautiful as well, in his cold, icy perfection of purpose.
The poet Keats said, “Beauty is Truth, truth beauty. That is all you know on earth and all you need to know.” When you are in a state of love, you are in harmony with that which created all of the universe, and you are able to see for yourself the beauty of it all. All around you is a creation singing glory to the god that created all things.
Rumi said, “Sell your cleverness and be in a state of bewilderment.” Said another way—suspend your ego’s attempts to selfishly declare its own greatness and instead be in a receptive state to the harmony, joy and love found by establishing harmonious connection to the god source within. You will then be able to see beauty everywhere.
