Beauties

Beauty is unbearable

, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully
have been Truth, Goodness and Beauty. . . . The ordinary objects of human endeavor -- property, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible. The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful,

 I know it is wrong.

People see you as an object, not as a person, and they project a set of expectatio

ns onto you. People who don't have it think beauty is a blessing, but actually it sets you apart. To those who followed Columbus and Cortez, the New World truly seemed incredible because of the natural endowments. The land often announced itself with a heavy scent mile out into the ocean. Giovanni di Verrazano in 1524 smelled the cedars of the East Coast a hundred leagues out. The men of Henry Hudson's Half Moon were temporarily disarmed by the fragrance of the New Jersey shore, while ships running farther up the coast occasionally swam through large beds of floating flowers. Wherever they came inland they found a rich riot of color and sound, of game and luxuriant vegetation. Had they been other than they were, they might have written a new mythology here. As it was, they took inventory. I said to myself -- I'll paint what I see -- what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it -- I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched ... but are felt in the heart.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
Listen to the Exhortatio
n of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence.

The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,

And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation
 of the Dawn!

I cannot believe that the inscrutabl
e universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!
Do you love me because I'm beautiful,

or am I am beautiful because you love me? It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplat
ion of her beauties to know of wonder and humility. The moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say there is no religion now. 'This like saying in rainy weather, there is no sun, when at that moment we are witnessing one of its superlative effects.
Spirituali
ty exists wherever we struggle with the issue of how our lives fit into the greater cosmic scheme of things. This is true even when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is "spiritual" when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life. Don't strew me with roses after I'm dead.
When Death claims the light of my brow
No flowers of life will cheer me: instead
You may give me my roses now!

The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. An

yone who proposes to do well must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it. Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty -- his excessive freedom.
He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophi
cally, but almost with pleasure. What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Written by : Feddami, Nigeria