The Beautiful
Thought I’d tackle the subject of Beauty (in which Truth and Goodness are related), to say something about its integral relationship to the evolution of humankind and to Spiritual Healthcare. The first supposition is that the beautiful is at the core, an intrinsic value of human beings, discovered and expressed in all spheres: the personal, cultural, scientific, societal spheres of development. It is a value and a value that is dynamic, alive like an energy within. It is something we discover that is expressed and appreciated. It is something related to a universal unity and harmony found in nature and art, and in ourselves with the feeling of an emotional pleasure in the unity of being. Whitehead said: “beauty is the final contentment of the Eros of the universe.” A touch of Beauty is consciousness seeking its Source of Perfection in all things. Beauty is the attractor of human evolution, a come hither, in the domains of nature, self, an culture as we evolve.
A touch of Beauty is as an intrinsic value ingredient integral to evolution. Its recognition is integral to Spiritual Healthcare. Characteristic of evolving organisms is an evolving complexity not only from within but from without, and this complexity means more parts to be integrated into a whole to maintain an integrity, a harmony and unity of being in terms of person, or a unity of relations in culture or society; or in the scientific arena, where theory and discovery have greater and greater powers of unification (beauty) such as E = mc^2.
So then if we admit that beauty is not just something to appreciate, but to acknowledge as integral within us, something that wants expression toward a unity of being in all spheres of relation, personal and cultural, then that very recognition itself is a kind of Spiritual Healthcare, personal and social. And where we don’t have it, then is a kind of Spiritual dis-ease, a disease that cries out for attention in the pain of disunity, an attention that seeks for greater unity and integration, a Spiritual healing.
Now to return to Jesus dying on the cross within this concept of beauty offered as integral to evolution, and in particular, to the evolution of consciousness and being, we might see his death and resurrection as a universal process of evolution, that which moves toward a greater unity of being. This involves a kind of death of the old and resurrection of the new a new unity of being (Love in the case of Jesus) which is true of any genuine or universal process of change on the path toward the perfection of the Beautiful. Thus in both spheres, the personal or collective, the symbolism of Jesus on the cross can signify or point (beyond the Christian dogma) towards a process of refinement within and without as that movement toward a greater unity of being. If we recognize this process within, that too is a function of Spiritual Healthcare.
In order for there to be pure art, pure freedom of being is necessary, otherwise there is a distortion in the doing, resulting in something less than pure in the attempted Beauty of the art. Thus ultimately, in terms of consciousness and a Spiritual Healthcare directive: Pure Art = Freedom of Being =
Finding
Formless Identity
Is to become the
Radiance of
All Things
