Why are ideas about beauty and the beautiful central to every spiritual tradition, and have been so for as long as we can discover? What has beauty to do with the mystic path? What has led all the truly great thinkers, sages, wise men and women of the past and present to advise their followers to love the beautiful, to seek it out, to attune their minds to it as best they can? And what is it that makes a thing of beauty beautiful? What causes beauty to exist, and what are its effects?
Perhaps the first thing we should note is that beauty manifests on many different levels of being. Each level is brighter, better, truer, more beautiful, more unified and so more powerful than that which is below it. The mystic’s path stretches across these levels, from the material world up through the heavenly to the utterly divine.
In the normal world or realm we occupy, the eyes of men are veiled to protect them from the sublime power of higher beauty. We perceive a reflection or shadow of the beauty that exists on a higher rung on the ladder of being. And yet even here the merest glimpse has the power to shock.
The extent to which we are able to attune our minds to higher beauty is a measure of our progress on the path. And make no mistake, these glimpses are vitally important to those who would seek to follow the ancient way. Very soon the lover of true beauty comes to realise that it is an integral part of our journey home, and brings previously unforeseen blessings to body, mind and spirit.
In its essence the ultimate Beauty is one of the eternal powers of God. We cannot hope to comprehend it. As with ultimate Truth and Goodness we cannot somehow rise above it to consider it objectively, in the round. We cannot pass cool judgement on its actual nature. For earthly man to gaze upon the crown of Beauty itself is impossible; and even when that Beauty is encountered in the splendour of the heavenly realms, it cannot be defined or translated into words. It cannot in any way be weighed or measured; and nor will it ever be contained by the material reasoning of man.
To some, a thing of beauty is something to be suspicious of; it may even be secretly feared and resented. And to the most deprived, beauty does not exist. Even among the lovers of beauty, each has his or her own unique make-up, and our physical, mental and spiritual attributes combine in such a personal way that we may find some forms of beauty more accessible to us than others. But that doesn’t matter. Every manifestation of beauty is a potential gateway to a higher realm, and this is its immeasurable value to all seekers. Cultivating a sincere love of the beautiful, in whatever form suits us, leads us from the material to the spiritual.
If we can fully absorb our minds in a thing of beauty, even for a little while, it will bring to us more vitality, more health and happiness, and above all, more peace of mind – all of which are available in greater abundance in the heavenly realms. We will rise from the material forms of beauty destined to change and eventually pass away, to the undying beauty of the immortal spirit “where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.”
If we sometimes find life difficult—and who has not from time to time—or if we are sad for some reason or another, recalling to our mind anything we find beautiful can bring consolation; it can lift and refresh our spirits, so that we feel able to carry on. The contemplation of beautiful things turns our minds away from the negative emotions of sadness and worry to the positive thoughts and emotions which are never far from the truly beautiful. It restores health and balance because we cannot separate beauty from harmony and wholeness. Higher beauty pacifies our whole being and dispels all anxiety and discontent.
It is important from the outset however, that we are not misled in our search for beauty. We should not become mere dreamers or decadent aesthetes who forget or ignore the material lessons and responsibilities of our life. We must learn to retain our grip on material circumstances while bringing them into proper balance with our spiritual ideals.
Because we all differ in our capacity to sense the inner spirit of beauty, many have been persuaded that beauty exists only in the opinions of the beholder. But this is untrue. While it may not always exist for us, higher beauty exists and is what it is regardless of our ability or inability to behold its holy forms. It is an essential attribute of the creative gods and of their creations, and as such, is far superior to anything which is subject to the opinions of men.
Some have argued that we must distinguish between beauty and utility, and that the beauty of a thing is only to be fully appreciated if enjoyed ‘as and for itself’, and not in relation to its usefulness. There is some truth in this, for we cannot truly blend our minds with the beauty of anything if we start from the standpoint of ‘what can it do for me’.  On the other hand, we should not forget that there’s a harmony, wholeness and rightness about the concept of utility which makes it a thing of beauty itself. And conversely, it would also be unwise to ignore the sublime utility of beauty. Beauty relates to the perfection of a thing, and how can we deny usefulness to a thing perfected? Rather, the most beautiful is also the most useful; and anything that is truly useful must also be beautiful.
It’s also noteworthy that beauty is all around us. It certainly isn’t restricted to those areas of life most often associated with its appreciation. Talk to anyone who has a deeply rooted attraction to any of the material sciences for example and before long, adjectives like beautiful, wonderful, magnificent, exquisite, astounding and so on, will crop up in their conversation. With good reason, many of their students see in numbers a supreme and inspiring beauty. And a sense of the wonder, mystery and beauty of the universe has informed many a great scientific mind, leading those minds on to ground-breaking scientific discoveries. The mathematician Paul Erdos has said it as well as anyone:
“Why are numbers beautiful? It’s like asking why is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony beautiful. If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell you. I KNOW numbers are beautiful. If they aren’t beautiful, nothing is.”
Although much of modern art can appear to be a rejection of the harmonious and the beautiful, great art is always beautiful. It comes from above as a message to console, to guide, to lift and inspire man. The true artist is one who can receive that message and then give it expression through the beauty of their art, whatever form it might take. The higher the inspiration and the degree to which it is transmitted free from distortion, the greater the artist, and the more useful they are in the service of all things good and true.
The beauty of anything, including such artistic creations as great sculpture, architecture, literature, music, painting, dance, and so on, lies not in its outer appearance. Rather, the true beauty is in that which caused it to be: the inner, spiritual ideal, the original inspiration which compelled the artist to create.
Countless writers and artists have celebrated the beauty of Nature. Its champions often consider the conditions found in Nature better able to reflect ideal beauty than the man-made conditions in our towns and cities. Although even here there is still plenty of beauty to be found, sometimes despite the unwise productions of man. In their skies at dawn and dusk for example, in their parks and gardens with their dewy lawns and scented flowers, in their galleries and museums, in their musical recitals of the works of inspired composers, or in the architecture of their great cathedrals. In fact, sometimes beauty can be even more apparent when standing out against less beautiful surroundings.
However, it seems best of all to seek the spirit of beauty in Nature. The veil that separates our material life from the more beautiful and peaceful conditions of the nearby higher realms is easier to penetrate in Nature than it is amid the dense vibrations of the modern city. When we strike out into the wild places away from the hustle and the bustle to the peaceful spots rarely visited by men, to the secret, silent places hidden from the workaday world, we put ourselves closer to the spirit of beauty which is the indwelling life of all Nature, of creation itself. When our travelling companions are the blue sky, the green meadow and the gentle hills, the swaying trees and the wildflowers that shine like jewels on the mossy bank, or the sun rising in the east, gilding a flat sea, or the river of stars that flows serenely through the night sky, we are in the best of company. These mystic companions of all lovers of beauty become as brothers and sisters, teachers and priests. Somehow, they make us better men and women, wiser, kinder, more gentle, more tolerant and magnanimous. They draw out from us our better part, for Proclus was right to assign a natural sympathy between all things: material, mental and spiritual.
In Nature we come to feel the oneness of peace, while half-heard harmonies on the scented breeze draw us further on into the deep woods.  Every lover of Nature will recognise the power of its beauty, a power which sometimes makes us like Emerson “glad to the brink of fear”. At such times it seems that the purpose of the One Life is to transmute everything into Beauty, and that this is the real driving force of evolution.
And speaking of transmutation, a thing of beauty contains a divine power which, under certain harmonious conditions and if aligned with the agency of the gods, can impress itself upon the substance of the mind. A mind so impressed is changed and changed for the better. This is a form of transmutation that we hear little about, but nevertheless is one that every seeker on the way should follow up to their benefit.
As we have already noted, all forms of beauty encountered by us here are reflections of yet more beautiful ideals or prototypes which exist in realms less dense than that of earth. Their origin lies in realms far above anything that can be envisaged by man. While this divine form of Beauty is unavailable to man’s material senses, a peaceful mind can harmonise with it to the extent that it can become like it. And while the ultimate source of all Beauty is God: The One, The True, The Good, The Beautiful, the beauty of the here and now can lead us higher to a greater beauty, which in turn leads to still greater beauty, and so on forever without end. In this sense Kenealy is right to define beauty as: “the perfection to which every existence should aspire.”
We should also note that there is an unbreakable connection between love and beauty. We can only love that which we consider beautiful. Following Plato, philosophers like Proclus and Plotinus have shown that it is our love of the beautiful that provides us with the energy required to travel the mystic path of return. It is this same love of the beautiful that compels the Sufi traveller of the dusty road to rise from the marketplace of the world to the garden of the beloved. And what is it but their love of all creation, its heavenly forms, its hierarchies of angelic lights, its unfolding revelations of greater and yet greater beauty, that raises the Christian mystic to the beatific vision of Christ, the prince of peace and love and beauty?
The further we travel on the path, and the closer we listen to the wise guides of the past and present, the clearer we come to realise that through test and trial, through success and failure, progress and setback, we slowly but surely improve ourselves. We gradually come to see that however far into the distant future it might be, or however imminent, if we persist, we shall one day complete the work. Contemplating the nature of our pilgrimage reveals to us that earth is a stepping stone to higher things. The better part of us loves, seeks, and eventually gains, a better life in more beautiful surroundings than any that can exist here.
There will come for each of us that blessed day when we will have finally succeeded, and the victory will be deservedly ours. We will have brought into a beautiful balance all the physical, mental and spiritual principles and powers. We will have unveiled the spirit of beauty within our inmost being, a place prepared and fit for the in-dwelling spirit of God, the image of the Divine, the pure essence, which is of and from the one Parent, undying, imperishable, indestructible and immortal.
So perhaps the greatest Beauty we can envisage is the Beauty of the true human being, finished and perfected, in harmony with the gods, and in full alignment with the unity of The One. And as inner beauty, truth and goodness are the eventual outcomes for us as seekers on the mystic path, so is our love of them the means by which we reach our destiny. And perhaps the simple virtues that shine like beautiful jewels within the breast of man, are the signposts on the way.